Fresh from last November’s release Rosso, ‘You Know My Name’ is the latest single from Norwegian Grammy-nominated (I know) King Midas. It’s a slice of Duran Duran-esque synthpop joy, accentuated by Per Vigmostad’s voice – one that was made for this kind of music – and a nice little bit of sax towards the end. Whilst we’re at it, give ‘Snow’ a listen, too. It’s even better. https://soundcloud.com/tigerfysisiskformat/kingmidas01snow?in=tigerfysisiskformat/sets/king-midas-rosso-singles https://soundcloud.com/tigerfysisiskformat/king-midas-you-know-my-name?in=tigerfysisiskformat/sets/king-midas-rosso-singles

New: King Midas – You Know My Name/Snow

A year is a long time to wait for new music, but Liverpool’s Ninetails might just have gotten away with it. ‘Radiant Hex’, the opening track on the band’s upcoming EP Quiet Confidence, is a slight shift in direction – nothing drastic or cataclysmic, but the guitar work that was ever-present on their last release, <a href="https://api.crackintheroad.com/music/18534-new-ninetails-slept-and-did-not-sleep/">Slept and Did Not Sleep, </a>has taken the back seat here, replaced instead by Burial-esque synths’n’samples. It’s a brave change to make – and runs the risk of being enveloped by unoriginality – but that is a fear that is quickly diminished – it’s a masterful track, and the presence of some brass sampling and fantastic vocal work adds some welcome colour to proceedings. The second half of the track, in particular, is as familiar as it is exciting.
Quiet Confidence is out in March. It’s probably going to be quite good.
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New: Ninetails – Radiant Hex

For your enjoyment, readers: the <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/interviews/25565-interview-correspondents-music-videos/">second</a> in our series of interviews on specialist, thematic subjects, with Ric Stringer of Manchester’s magnificent <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Shiniesmusic">SHINIES</a> – this time, on the phenomenon of the local music scene. More to come soon.
CitR: What’s your personal experience with Manchester’s local music scene?
Ric: I play rock and/or roll in its most prized lofts and basements. 
CitR: Is local music as strong as it has ever been?
Ric: I’d like to say it is. I think most music these days is local music, isn’t it? Pedantry aside though, I think cities are full of musicians these days. The internet’s saturated with new music every day and I think people are exploiting that – and so they should – everyone’s getting out and having a go, it’s all over the place. 
CitR: What effect do you think the internet has had on local music scenes?
Ric: My first thought would be a negative one; the internet is fucking annoying when it comes down to it. I’m suspicious of its oversaturation, its omniscience, its vain gratification, the rest of it – but realistically it’s probably not been that bad. Yeah, so you get a constant beleaguering of e-mails and tweetychats reminding you that a band are playing, but that’s just compensating – it’s all a promotional necessity nowadays. The argument that kids won’t come see bands while they sit comfortably in their iTunes library is bullshit, they’ll come if they’re into it- same as they always have. If anything, it gives people a chance to see more of a band they listen to, especially if there are only a couple of songs up on the internet. It definitely helped SHINIES; our first gig was full of people who’d come to see if there was more to us than just one song and a name, and that was all the internet’s fault. 
CitR: What can those scenes offer that the Internet can’t, if anything?
Ric: Blood, sweat, booze, tears, joy, pain, bruised ears…? New music, there’s a shit load of bands that have nothing out on the internet. Oh, and you get to meet girls, like, for reals, as in, they’re in front of you and shit, it’s totally fucking Mexico. 
CitR: Do you find that certain sounds or genres can be attached to or associated with certain locations or cities?
Ric: It’s happened on occasion I’ll admit, though I doubt that’s as significant as it sounds. I mean, the thought that there’s this transcendental relation between co-ordinates of a city and the music that comes out of it is a bit daft, it’s mostly just a case of social popularisation within a city after some successful form of artistic contextualisation. Artists then just follow suit – it’s the obvious thing to do. Of course the media will make a massive deal out of it all as soon as they find out that someone north of Oxford has accidentally picked up a guitar instead of a pickaxe, but they’ve done worse, it’s becoming easier to ignore. Let’s just say it creates a temporary buzz around a city, which is great, and bands in that city can do no wrong, but it’s fickle as fuck and becoming less and less relevant.  
CitR: What do you think Madchester’s legacy is, in terms of local music on both a national scale and within Manchester itself?
Ric: To be honest I really don’t know. Did Manchester create the idea of a ‘scene’? I wasn’t around before that kicked off so I have nothing to compare it to. All I know is there’s a huge amount of bands and artists in Manchester and the scene is a healthy one- we’ll all support one another and hang out, so that’s good I guess, but I feel like we’d be doing that anyway. The same applies for anywhere else in the UK, major cities anyway. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that, as a musician, scenes are important; you need a fan base and you need to be in a good environment. Plus it’s way more fun that way, and probably half the reason we do it in the first place.
CitR: Have you found that scenes can be incestuous – that is, the same bands supporting each other at the same venues? Do you think that’s a bad thing?
Ric: It probably is a little incestuous, but that’s bound to happen. You play shows, people come to see you, those people are in bands, you hang out, you play together, etc. I don’t think any bands are really pushed out in all honesty, but it probably helps that you’re friends with other bands. It’s just a healthy dab of cronyism, nothing suspect. I think you kind of have to expect and accept it.
CitR: Is there a danger that local music scenes can ‘trap’ bands – that a band can become so attached to a local scene that it diminishes their ability to perform and operate at a larger level?  
Ric: Maybe, but that’d be down to the bands themselves, I doubt they’d ever feel trapped. I think as a performing musician I’ll always thrive to reach as large an audience as possible because I enjoy both making music and people listening to it, if there’s no ambition to operate at a larger level then there’s no need to, and if it doesn’t work and you only get local gigs then that’s that, don’t fret, you’ll do what you do. 
CitR: Speaking personally, what cities do you think have the best music scenes in the country?
Ric: Manchester or London.

Thematic Interview: SHINIES (Local Music Scenes)

Ever since that internet thing really kicked into gear, music videos have become an integral, if not crucial, part of the music industry. Today, they’re far more than recorded performances of a song played over and over again on MTV. The effort behind them, and the hype they build, can be as significant as the songs themselves. With that in mind, this is the first of a series of thematic interviews – with more coming over the next few months – with various artists discussing various topics, ranging from local music scenes to the role of the internet to the darker side of touring. For our first, we sat down with The Correspondents’ Ian Bruce, shortly after the release of their highly innovative video for ‘Fear and Delight’, to talk about the role of the music video in the industry.
CitR: Briefly tell us about your new video, and how it was filmed.
Ian: It’s incredibly complicated. We feel very indebted to the director, Naren Wilks, who invented this camera technique which he calls composite camera, which – I hope I get this right or he’ll probably get cross – the basic gist of which is that you have eight, or any number, of cameras filming the same thing from different perspectives simultaneously and then that footage is then layered up, so you can create this crazy kaleidoscopic effect. He calls it composite of camera technique. He originally did a piece called ‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9LcP3WXFV0">Collide-o-scope</a>’ – it was in a square room, and he had four cameras in each corner, and they were angled down into the space so that each camera theoretically viewed the same looking space – the same angle of the room. Then, when he gets into it, he turns into four. With us, he did it in a cylinder, so you can have as many cameras as you like set up around the edge. He managed to get hold of eight cameras, and then he’d multiply to sixteen. It’s a pretty extraordinary technique.
CitR: It’s not the first highly stylised video that you’ve done. Do you find you intentionally try to avoid producing videos that might be seen as vanilla, or by-the-numbers?
Ian: I don’t think we ever think in those terms. I don’t think we consider ourselves as a pop act, and I certainly wouldn’t want to put out a video that could be considered as generic. If anything, I’d rather that people just didn’t like it because they found the aesthetic wasn’t to their liking rather than being something that was just bog-standard. I don’t think anyone sets out to make a video that’s generic or bog-standard. Maybe they do. Maybe producers would set out to do that to appeal to a particular market. With the other videos – there’s the animation that I did. That was supposed to be this really simple thing, but I got bored after about a day and then it became something a lot more elaborate – and inevitably stylised, because if you’ve just got one person in a room with a pen it’s going to end up in a particular style. 
CitR: Do you feel that your genre of music lends itself to a particular visual style?
Ian: Potentially. There’s something quite nostalgic about our music – it has links to the vintage. Looking at ‘Fear and Delight’, we made quite a conscious effort that yes, I’m wearing a suit, and that camera trickery has links to the zoetrope and those quite manual ideas. But those are the things I wear on stage, and I don’t think we’re trying to be a particular style. 
CitR: Going into making a video, do you have a specific aim in your head about what you want to achieve, or get across?
Ian: With ‘Fear and Delight’, it was a different process because Naren had approached us with the idea and said he’d like to make a music video with us and we thought ‘Wow, this is an amazing opportunity’. And we couldn’t actually believe he approached us because we feel he could have approached anyone – even a really large artist, who would have just dropped everything and done it. He basically approached us and said he wanted to do it with this particular technique in a cylindrical space. When we first went down there, we had a very rough storyboard that we were going to play around with. Tim and I really homed in on a particular storyboard. I think Naren is an exceptionally good artist and a very good filmmaker, but he’s never made a music video before – and that’s a very different kettle of fish: every five seconds, scenes have to change and things have to really tap in with the beat, which is a slightly different thing. I think we had to sort of co-direct that part of it. But then, the video we’re about to release in January is actually a painted animation which I’ve done, which is actual stop-motion. I’ve painted portraits of myself from when I was a baby all the way up to now, and had a camera set up that takes a photo every eight seconds, so it records the painting as a process. Then, when you convert that into animation, you take out all the frames where you see my hands and end up with this weird painting that kind of paints itself. So you see this face aging over time.
CitR: Do you find there’s anything you can get across in a video that you can’t in live music?
Ian: Oh yeah, definitely. Live music is really chaotic. It can be really unrefined, and that’s why it’s so fun. People come to live shows because they’re aware things can go wrong at any moment. That’s the joy of it. You’re walking a tightrope, and seeing people fall off that tightrope is one of the most exciting things that you can see – or just doing weird things on stage that you wouldn’t expect. Whereas with a music video, you can look at every single split second and break it down, so that everything is as perfect as you want it to be. Unless you set up a video so that it’s more of a performance that’s recorded once, and that’s it. I’d certainly be up for doing that. 
CitR: Speaking more generally, there seems to be a trend over the last few years to produce, rather than music videos, short films that are soundtracked by an artist’s song. Do you believe a music video should be more about the music than the video or vice versa?
Ian: I think it can be both. Our next video – or the one after our next video – is actually going to be a short film. Two of the songs of the album – one of them we play live, it’s a sort of slow, ballad-y thing, but the other we’ve never played – those are going to be sandwiched together and they’re going to create the soundtrack to a four-minute film. I don’t think there should be any restrictions. There are so many videos that I’ve watched where I remember the song and not the video, and vice versa. Sometimes the aesthetic is so strong that I just don’t even care. Often I find myself following particular music video makers rather than the artist. 
CitR: With regards to the internet, it seems apparent that music videos are more statistically popular than, say, Soundcloud or Bandcamp pages. Why do you think that is?
Ian: I think it’s something like 80 percent of music is digested through music videos. It’s because peoples’ attention spans are becoming less and less. They want to be stimulated. It’s a very weird game, being a musician. Peoples’ attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and shorter – the fact that Vine exists and is so popular, means that peoples’ entertainment is being cut down to six seconds. It’s kind of crazy. Twitter’s very similar in that sense. I went to art college too, so for me, aesthetics are very important. I’d almost say they’re as important to me as the music. Tim doesn’t think quite so visually. He certainly knows what he likes, but his brain works musically. That’s why he’s such a great producer. 
CitR: What’s your view on videos that are produced, arguably, for shock value or to stir up controversy? Say, for example, Miley Cyrus.
Ian: Fair enough, really. They all have their place. Miley Cyrus is really not that controversial – she thinks she’s being controversial because she used to be a teeny pop star. But they knew what they were doing, certainly. Die Antwoord, for example, they’re really entertaining. They are, I guess, a sort of highly-branded form of punk. They managed to create their own brand out of it. I think it all has its place. I don’t think there was anything particularly new about Miley Cyrus. Terry Richardson, I guess, is a kind of talented pervert. 
CitR: Is there any video that stands out as being particularly memorable from when you were growing up or starting out as an artist?
Ian: I really don’t know. My mind’s gone blank. I can’t think of anything particular from when I was growing up that really hit a chord. I remember seeing that Radiohead one – what’s that one where his head is in that glass cylinder, and it fills up with water? [It’s ‘No Surprises’] That, to me, was one of those ones where it’s like you’ve set up an experiment, and then you record a video, so it’s much more like an art performance than a music video. There are so many forgettable videos of artists in various locations just strumming away. 

CitR: Do you think that, in the next ten years, there’ll be any major technological advancements in the way music videos are produced or released?  
 Ian: I’m probably not the right person to ask. ‘Fear and Delight’, and the one we’re currently about to start, they’re pretty craft-based things. Naren would say that as well, all those techniques are manual. There’s a tiny bit of CGI involved in terms of green screen and layering stuff. I’m imagining that… I don’t know, 3D? People have done 3D music videos, haven’t they? Once you get to the stage where you’ve got Google Glasses or something like that… The problem is, things are becoming smaller and smaller. It’s the detail in things that might be lost. That’s why sensationalism works, that’s why really poppy, overt graphics work. It’s quite difficult to get subtlety across when you’re looking at it on an iPhone. I remember seeing Gravity in 3D at the IMAX. Like a lot of these things, it works, but a lot of things seem to be done for fad’s sake. If technology is used in the right way, and ties in really nicely with whatever concept a band’s director has come up with, then yeah – brilliant. 
 
Check out the video for ‘Fear and Delight’ – and the making of – below.
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Thematic Interview: The Correspondents (Music Videos)

The phenomenon of an artist’s side-project being more impressive, engaging and altogether more fun than their main work is as tragic as it is intruiging. It’s certainly what happened with James Mercer. The plodding mediocrity of the Shins over the last few years was, in 2010, eclipsed entirely by his team up with Danger Mouse to produce Broken Bells, the first and, to date, only LP from the band of the same name.
Until now, that is. With Broken Bells‘ second album, After the Disco, scheduled for released in January, the band have released their first single from it – ‘Holding on for Life’ is a piece of Bee Gees-esque brilliance – as weird as it is outright fun – and one that clearly allows Mercer to actually have fun with his vocals and songwriting for once. It’s a good start for what could be one of 2014’s first brilliant albums.
<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/78536585" height="140" width="500" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

New: Broken Bells – Holding On For Life

Okay, so “new” might be pushing it slightly here – Elsewhere, the latest from Insightful (arguably one of the Soulection label’s finest artists), was released a over a week ago. But let’s ignore that. Focus, instead, on this utterly sublime album. Matthew Suggett’s intertwining of hip-hop beats and psychedelic synths is pretty much flawless, and it’s as engaging as it is chilled – which is no easy combination to achieve.
Guest vocals from singer-songwriter Kimberly Lola and Jessica Cooke stand out in particular (if you really must listen to only one track, make it the truly beautiful ‘She Swoons’), and inject a welcome amount of variety into the album. But Insightful shines on his own, too, as his top-notch production glues together the pieces that he brings together in his songwriting.
It’s available now, on a pay-what-you-want basis. It’s certainly worth a few quid.
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New: Insightful – Elsewhere

It’s a pleasant feeling to stumble across something really magnificent when you weren’t even looking. I found London-based 4-piece Wyldeck whilst sheltering from some less-than-magnificent weather at a festival this summer, and was instantly taken with them. Their psychedelic/dark folk sound may not be particularly groundbreaking, but it’s a fusion that they’ve mastered to the point of excelling almost every other act in the psych-folk genre.
Big words, then, but with no exaggeration – their first (and, so far, only) EP is as charming as it is exciting, with hints of Jefferson Airplane poking through during ‘On Your Knees’, whilst lead singer Cece Wyldeck’s gorgeous voice carries the EP’s highlight and closer, ‘Smoke’.
Beyond the recorded stuff, though, Wyldeck shine live. Really, really, really shine. In a way you can’t imagine until you’ve seen it. Again, no exaggeration here – from the very welcome focus on a more psychedelic rock edge during their performances to their sheer presence onstage, they’re, more than anything else, a live band – and if you get even the slightest hint of enjoyment out of this EP, no amount of flowery language or praise can emphasise enough just how much you need to track down a live set by this band.
Check out the EP below.
https://soundcloud.com/wyldeck/sets/ep

Introducing – Wyldeck

Listening to a new Los Campesinos! album feels like coming home. After seven years and five albums, the sound of Gareth Campesinos!’s voice now has a heartening familiarity to it, which means that even if they started producing ambient post-rock jazz fusion, Los Campesinos! would still feel like Los Campesinos!.
But fear not – they haven’t quite turned to the post-jazz-core (yet) – only seconds into No Blues’ opening track, ‘For Flotsam’, it becomes comfortingly clear that the essence of Los Campesinos! is still very much alive. In fact, more than anything, No Blues feels like a sequel to 2011’s Hello Sadness, the album with which the band really hit their stride, having experimented around a bit with twee indie pop (Hold On Now, Youngster) and a more punk rock sound on Romance is Boring. This is a continuation of that stride – the next step, if you will – and a development of the wholesome maturity which came out of that experimentation.
But that’s not to say it’s more of the same. Most noticeably, there’s a playfulness to No Blues that was less obvious on some tracks on Hello Sadness and completely absent on others. From an amusing bit of wordplay in the chorus to ‘Glue Me’ to the utterly inspired use of a cheerleading squad during the second half of ‘Avocado, Baby’ (a song which, it’s worth adding here, is easily one of the best songs the band have ever produced), the whole record feels a little bit lighter and more fun than Hello Sadness.
The album’s tone, oddly enough, is by no means altered because of this. Sure, it’s a bit more fun this time around, but they’re only little things, and don’t detract from an extremely powerful atmosphere. Now, a disclaimer: I don’t know if this is a universal thing or a personal thing or something a lot of you feel, lovely readers, but I often find that certain songs on an album feel completely right in their placement. More specifically, some songs, placed towards the end of an album, feel like climaxes – they have a sense of grandness or an impending finality to them. They have a very specific emotional pull. Funeral’s ‘Rebellion (Lies)’. More recently, ‘By The Throat’ on CHVRCHES’ debut. Even ‘Baby I Got The Death Rattle’, on Hello Sadness. I may be talking complete shit, here. If I am, just ignore what I just said, and what I’m about to say, and everything I ever say ever again. But No Blues feels like an album made up entirely of those big, emotional, climactic songs – and it shouldn’t work, but it does. And the result of that, coupled with that ‘continuation of maturity’ stuff that I mentioned earlier, is that No Blues feels like the apex of Los Campesinos’ career: a grand, climactic album with that very specific emotional pull. I hesitate to use the quite overused word ‘epic’, but it really sort of is.
That’s not to suggest that there’s any finality to it, of course, or that it’s all downhill from here, or that this shouldn’t be the fifth out of fifty albums they end up producing, but it is to say that, whilst they hit their stride two years ago, this time, they’ve really nailed it.

Review: Los Campesinos! – No Blues

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/19388-new-silent-devices-marchlands/attachment/13587_10151427678963169_441752620_n/" rel="attachment wp-att-19389"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-19389" alt="13587_10151427678963169_441752620_n" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2013/01/13587_10151427678963169_441752620_n-260x105.jpg" width="260" height="105" /></a>After a period of relative silence following the release of their double-A single Una/Moire last year, Leicester-based ambient rockers Silent Devices return with ‘Marchlands’. Another individual release, it’s a track which seamlessly weaves together singer Josh Coyne’s beautifully understated vocals with the instantly recognisable guitar twang that so often stands out – but never dominates – on their songs.
The release of ‘Marchlands’ fits in with the band’s tendency to produce truly gorgeous music at a tragically sparse rate. There’s potential for a truly great album here somewhere – it’s just a matter of time.
<iframe width="500" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F77016426&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=500&maxheight=750"></iframe>

New: Silent Devices – Marchlands

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/18754-interview-los-campesinos-2/attachment/img-los-campesinos_164807117265/" rel="attachment wp-att-18755"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-18755" title="img-los-campesinos_164807117265" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/12/img-los-campesinos_164807117265-260x167.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="167" /></a>Coming to the end of the Hello Sadness era, and just before their (utterly stellar) end-of-year set in Islington Assembly Hall, we sit down with Gareth Campesinos! to discuss album five, social networking and the depature of founding member Ellen Campesinos! from the band.
You’ve hyped up tonight’s show quite a lot.
Have we hyped it up a lot? I don’t think it’s been hyped up. It’s been advertised. We did it without paying for any advertising.
It’s been advertised as quite a special show, then. Why?
It’s special because it’s drawing a veil over Hello Sadness. It’s going to be the last gig before we go and record the new album so it’s important for us in that respect. It’s exciting because it’s in a smaller venue than we usually play in London. And because we’ve not advertised it properly, we’ve only done so through our Facebook and Twitter – because we haven’t paid for any advertising in publications or any web space or anything means that the people who are going to be at the gig will probably be more close-knit Los Campesinos! fans who have seen us on more occasions, which allows us to be self-indulgent, and to indulge the audience, in the setlist. If you’re playing a big gig – we’ve played Shepherd’s Bush in the past – if you’re playing to one and a half thousand people then there’s a good deal of those who need convincing, whereas we feel a gig of this nature, people are already convinced and they’re going to be happy to go along with us and see what happens with it. Also, because it’s Ellen’s last gig as well. Ellen would be happy to go out with no fanfare and just quietly leave, but it’s nice to just have a gig to celebrate that – especially a gig of this nature playing a wide range of songs we’ve done from album to album to album to album. So lots of reasons it’s going to be fun for us and we’ve got some mates down to play – Rob’s playing – and this will be the only gig he’s played this year as Sparky Deathcap. 
What was the experience of touring Hello Sadness like, and how has it differed at all to previous tours?
I think with each tour and each record we become more accustomed to it. You get better at touring; you get more used to dealing with it. I guess you have to look harder for new experiences because obviously part of the best thing about touring is that you experience new things and see new things, and when you’ve been touring and touring those new things are harder to find. So it’s great that we got to go to Australia for the first time. It had gotten to the point where we hadn’t played anywhere new to us in a long time, so it was amazing to go somewhere and meet people who had been to see us from six years ago. It’s more difficult to choose a setlist than it was on the last record, because we’ve got another record’s worth of songs. But touring is obviously as exciting and I think is the most exciting and the most monotonous thing in the world, because the things which are exciting become things that you are accustomed to, and that’s a really weird thing. It’s amazing, but it’s a really odd thing too – the extent that the things that you start to get excited at are the things you do at home. I think we’re at the point now where we just want to make a record. We’ve got lots of great new ideas, lots of new things we want to experiment with and try, and we’re excited to go and do that now.
What can you tell us about your fifth record?
From my side of things, it’s very early days. Tom’s written the bulk of the music for it, and it’s got me very, very excited. I feel like I can say that with no bias, because I have no involvement with the writing of the music. I have no musical ability at all. Tom’s ability to record and produce music himself astounds me, and he’s all self-taught. ‘A Doe to a Deer’, which we put out this week was recorded, mixed and mastered by Tom. And I think it sounds fantastic too. These demos that he gives me are pretty much fully formed to that level already. I think it’s more ambitious, still and there are a lot more textures going to be involved. Lyrically, I couldn’t tell you because as ever I like to leave writing lyrics until the latest possible moment, otherwise I dislike what I’ve written by the time I come to record it. But we’re just excited to get into the studio – and I guess this is where I revert to clichés – but we’re just excited to try new things, and we’re very lucky that the record labels have just been happy with us to do what we want, and that’s a really liberating thing to experience.
 You mentioned that Ellen’s leaving. Has it been particularly difficult to see such a long-time member of the band leave?
Not really, no. Ellen said the same herself: it won’t hit you until later on, because we’re excited about this gig and we’re excited about the evening, and we’re excited for Ellen because she’s going on to do fantastic things. I guess there’s an element of envy for that as well, because she gets to try all these different things. It’s the fourth time somebody’s departed the band. It’s not something that we’re used to, but it’s something that we accept. Being in Los Campesinos!, you don’t make very much money. You go along at the same level that we have for the past few years. It’s a great level to be at, but I can totally understand why Ellen would want to try something different, and we’re excited for that because she’s always worked with video and writing and it’s great that she gets to go an experience that when perhaps being in the band wasn’t allowing her to realise her full potential in a lot of those areas. When it comes to the point of playing shows without her, and touring without her, obviously that’s when it’ll be felt, but the main thing is that since  she’s been touring with us for the past six or seven years, and since we’re as close friends as we are, you get excited for somebody and to see how excited they are to go on. I’m sure by the end of tonight she’ll be an absolute mess. It’ll be an emotional show for that reason. But it’s fantastic for her, and it’s very exciting.
 This show was organised entirely through Facebook and Twitter. How important do you find it is for a band to maintain a presence outside of merely playing shows and releasing music?
In this day and age, it’s really weird to compare the difference between now and even as far back as the 90s. It puts a lot more control in the hands of the band. You don’t have to pay people to do things you could do quite easily yourself. It astounds me, some of the things bands pay other people to do for them that they could easily do themselves. Bands who pay other people to run their merch – it’s waste. It’s completely unnecessary. If they don’t do it themselves, they’re losing out on money. And I think music fans are, more and more, demanding more and for a band to release an album every two years and then tour that album, I don’t think that’s enough to satiate people’s interest and I do think people will be very quick to forget about bands. That’s why doing something like Heat Rash was so great for us, to trickle out these songs every six months or so. That would tide people over from one album to the next. I think it’s been useful in keeping people aware of us and stopping too many people thinking, “oh, what happened to Los Campesinos!?” 
 What have you been listening to recently?
This past week, I’ve been listening to this modern composer called Max Richter, who’s done some stuff in the past I really loved. But this year, he released this thing called Vivaldi Recomposed. He’s basically taken Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, broken it down and then built it back up again. It resembles the original, but he’s written his own bits into it. It’s absolutely astounding. I’ve been going back over releases this year to decide what my favourite albums of the year have been. Obviously at this point, with lots of publications putting out their Top 100s or Top 50s or whatever, there’s been a lot of new stuff to check out. It’s one of my favourite times. I know a lot of people are sceptical of lists, but I enjoy them, because it does turn me on to a lot of new stuff. The stuff that Burial’s released this year has been absolutely incredible.
The stuff he’s released in the last few days, as well…
Yeah, exactly. I’ve not really fully taken that all in yet, because obviously they’re big pieces. Kindred is one of my absolute favourite pieces this year. I was surprised it was released this year when I checked it, because it hasn’t really appeared in many end of year lists. I know it’s not an album so it doesn’t really fit in, though. I tend not to listen to too much indie or guitar music these days, because it’s what we do. I like to be away from it so I’m not too influenced by it, and don’t try to rip it off. I guess when you hear the same sounds all the time, you want to escape from those sounds when you’re listening for leisure. But it’s been a great year for music and I think most of the best stuff from this year I won’t hear until January or February when I finally have enough time to plough through everything.
What has your best moment been this year?
Australia was fantastic. That was something that we’d looked forward to for a long time and it completely lived up to our expectations. Playing the main stage at Reading and Leeds was great because Reading and Leeds are festivals that we’ve been to as music fans and we played there twice before, but to finally get there and play the main stage was completely overwhelming. Non-musically, a couple of months ago my football team was losing 4-0 at half time and won 5-4 in the end. That puts the musical stuff into perspective.

Interview: Los Campesinos!

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/18534-new-ninetails-slept-and-did-not-sleep/attachment/429289_451381838246557_173753733_n/" rel="attachment wp-att-18535"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-18535" title="429289_451381838246557_173753733_n" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/11/429289_451381838246557_173753733_n-260x260.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="260" /></a>
The understated beauty of Slept And Did Not Sleep, the new EP from Liverpool-based four piece Ninetails, is startlingly apparent from the outset. The record’s opener, ‘Maybe We’, is a simple yet effective introduction (featuring a truly gorgeous repetitive guitar riff) and the remainder of the EP doesn’t fail to live up to that. ‘Body Clock’ and ‘Rawdon Fever’ in particular stand out – whilst the latter is a more typical (but no less brilliant) display of math rock-esque riffage, the former delves into the realm of the ambient, and it’s in this seamless melding of those two genres where Slept And Did Not Sleep truly shines. The 8-minute ‘Boxed In’ is a wonderful and hugely ambitious piece of experimental ambience, whilst ‘Mama Aniseed’ closes off the record on a high.
Give it a listen below for a whole £0.00, or buy it <a href="https://superstardestroyer.bandcamp.com/album/slept-and-did-not-sleep">here</a>. It’s the right thing to do, you know.
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New: Ninetails – Slept And Did Not Sleep

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We’ll spare you the nonsense; you know who Alt-J are. In the midst of all that Mercury nonsense, we managed to have a (very) quick chat with the band’s very own Gwil Sainsbury. Enjoy.
How’s touring coming along?
We are currently in Germany supporting TDCC on their European tour. We did a 5 week tour of America in October which was incredible. There were parts of the tour where we just drove for three days solid to get to the next gig. It’s a very surprising, interesting and massive country. We are looking forward to going back there for a week in December.
In what ways has the incredibly positive response to An Awesome Wave affected your lives?
It’s given us a job for one thing which for four arts graduates is fairly good. We had no idea that it would be accepted, and responded to, in the way that it has. So it’s been quite an overwhelming task to understand why people and critics have taken to us so easily. We still don’t know.
Was there any particular moment over the last few months where you realised just how successful the LP had become?
Some of the festival crowds over the summer were quite insane. We turned up at festivals in countries where we had no idea the record was even released yet and were playing to tents at capacity with fans knowing the words. It’s been pretty unbelievable. Playing Jools Holland was a real highlight as was the whole Mercury Award thing.
An Awesome Wave took 5 years to write. Having seen how well received it is, do you find it will be easier to write and release new music more quickly?
Possibly, we just aren’t sure yet. We all certainly feel a lot more comfortable and confident with our instruments but we just haven’t had the time to start writing as a whole band yet as we are still constantly touring with the current album.
When it comes to writing new music, do you think you will look to progress or change your sound at all, or do you think that you’ve found a niche that you’re happy with?
We simply don’t know yet. Ideas of progress seem a little too linear in thinking. We just work on a track until we feel it’s done and we treat each track with its own sympathetic set of terms. It’s just not possible for us to say what our next tracks will sound like.
Why triangles?
Why not?
There’s been a bit of a flurry of activity lately in regards to releasing music videos. How important do you find videos are for complimenting your music?
Finding a music video that actually compliments a track is very hard. We don’t worry about it so much in complementing the track as we do it being an interesting piece of video. We look at it as an opportunity for a director to create something interesting that will enhance the impact of the track not necessarily to complement it.
What have been your best and worst moments onstage?
You tend to erase bad moments from memory as soon as you leave the stage. The most recent embarrassing memory was on Jools Holland where they start the programme with a big jam session with all the bands. Alice Cooper’s band started it off in b flat. Joe and I had no idea what that really meant as the only person in the band with any formal music training is Gus. So he had to show us which frets to play. That was pretty cringe-y moment on TV in a room of professional musicians. The best live moments so far have been playing a very excited gig at the Oxford Academy the day after the Mercury Prize, Reading Festival, Bestival, Pukkelpop and Latitude. 
What music have you been listening to on tour?
Princess Chelsea, Lil Golden Book
Hot Chip, In Our Heads
Stealing Sheep, Into The Diamond Sun
If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be?
Dr. Dre.

Interview: Alt-J

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/18023-interview-villagers/attachment/villagers-photographed-in-paris-by-mark-nixon/" rel="attachment wp-att-18024"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-18024" title="Villagers, photographed in Paris by Mark nixon" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/10/rsz_villagers_full_band_-260x173.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="173" /></a>Villagers have been AWOL for a while. After the release of the Mercury nominated Becoming A Jackal in 2010 and a bit of touring on top of that, the Dublin-based project, masterminded by Conor O’Brien, went off the map a bit. Until now, that is. In a flurry of activity, the band have announced the forthcoming release of an album in January 2013, released a new single, ‘The Waves’ (which we’ve added for your pleasure at the end of this article), and announced two London dates this November on top of their imminent tour with Grizzly Bear. In the midst of this, we’re happy to bring you a short chat we had with Conor via the power of the internet. Enjoy.
What have you been up to during 2011 and 2012?
Hi Crack! Nice to meet you. I’ve been touring, writing, recording and making pictures throughout these two years. It’s been fulfilling and frustrating in equal measures.
‘The Waves’ came as quite a shock to many who were expecting more of the sound heard on Becoming A Jackal. What inspired that slight shift in direction?
The only inspiration for me was the one that I’ve always had since I was very young, which is to use the process of making music in order to learn and to grow as a human being and as an artist.
How much and what sort of progression, musically and thematically, can we expect to see on {Awayland}?
The new album feels very much like a natural progression. Musically, I learned a huge amount over the last two years in terms of production and electronic instrumentation, although that only really shows itself in a very subtle manner on the album as a whole. It’s also more densely orchestrated, courtesy of my bandmate Cormac (keys), who really put the hours in on this one. Basically, it’s more expansive and diverse on a purely sonic level. Thematically, I guess it moves on from the fiddly minutiae of ‘Jackal’ and deals with things on a more widescreen level. It’s like ‘Jackal’ was my Barry Lyndon, and ‘{Awayland}’ is my Space Odyssey.
Was the writing and recording process particularly different to that of the previous album?
The writing process differed slightly in the sense that I wrote some of this album whilst I was on the road touring. I can kind of hear that in the words when I listen to it now. It definitely takes you on a bit of a trip. The recording process was completely different this time around in that I recorded all of the instruments on the first album, whereas I went into the studio with the full band on this one. We really felt we’d earned the right to be in a studio together, after all the travelling and playing we had done. Also, myself and Tommy (guitarist/co-producer) really had a much stronger idea as to how we wanted the songs to sound this time round. It was amazing. It was more focused from the get-go.
What influences did you utilize most, if any, on the new record?
Mainly ‘Claire De Lune’ by Debussy, but also lots of techno. Impressionist music in general, I suppose.
Did you feel any particular pressure recording this album, as a result of the critical acclaim of the last?
I can truly and honestly say that I only felt the pressure from within myself. I’ve got a very blinkered, focused head on me when I’m making things.
Which albums released this year have you particularly enjoyed? Who would you tip to win the Mercury Prize this year?
I really like ‘>>’ by Beak. It should definitely win a prize of some sort. Even if it’s the prize for ‘best post-krautrock krautrock album’. I’ll make that prize up so they can win it.
You’re touring with Grizzly Bear in the next few weeks. Would you want that sort of publicity to translate into even more commercial success at the expense of being less able to play in more intimate venues?
So you’re asking whether I enjoy playing small venues as opposed to big ones? I like the variety of playing both, which is something we’ve been able to achieve up to this point. I suppose the new album is somewhat geared towards the larger stages in the sense that it is quite energetic and epic for the most part. But some of my favourite most frenetic gigs have been in tiny rooms, so I’m willing to experiment with both.
If you could only play one festival next summer, which would it be?
Maybe Summer Sonic? We haven’t been to Japan yet. I’d like to go to Japan.
{Awayland} is scheduled for release in January 2013. Check out ‘The Waves’ below, which may or may not be taken from the LP.
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Interview: Villagers

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17904-video-alt-j-fitzpleasure/attachment/trianglealt-j/" rel="attachment wp-att-17907"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-17907" title="triangle+alt-j" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/09/triangle+alt-j-260x260.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="260" /></a>Continuing to ride on the crest of the great wave of hype, and fresh off the back of a <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17887-news-mercury-prize-2012-shortlist-revealed/" target="_blank">Mercury Prize nomination</a>, Alt-J have dropped their newest video to ‘Fitzpleasure’, the Last Exit to Brooklyn-inspired track from this year’s An Awesome Wave. Much like the band’s video to ‘Tessellate’, it’s a gothic mix of religious imagery and gang culture, and serves as not only a beautifully fitting video to the darkest track on the album, but also – through its top quality production values – gives an inkling as to just how successful the band have become. Check it out below.
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<a href="https://vimeo.com/49246286">ALT-J “Fitzpleasure”</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/cosa">COSA</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.

Video: Alt-J – Fitzpleasure

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Never judge a book by its cover. Or an album by its artwork, for that matter. The album sleeve for Yeasayer’s third LP Fragrant World, depicting some intangible, abstract shape, is devoid of colour, almost bland – perhaps an intended contrast to the intensely colourful psychedelic “vignettes” the band have been using to promote their latest singles – but the album certainly isn’t.
Those familiar with the band’s previous records will perceive a significant push towards a much trippier direction with this one, which has resulted in a noticeable change in sound from the tribal and experimental stylings of All Hour Cymbals or the catchy singalong choruses of Odd Blood. However, it’s nothing cataclysmic and all the typical Yeasayer hallmarks remain. Whilst drum kits are replaced with drum pads and the prime instrumentation seems to be coming from synths rather than guitars, the slightly poppy edge and earworm riffs remain (such as that found on the album’s standout track and most recent single ‘Henrietta’) as do Chris Keating’s wonderfully distinctive vocals. Think of the sort of shift in sound Animal Collective took from Strawberry Jam to Merriweather Post Pavillion – the core is still there, but what surrounds it is fundamentally different. It’s a refreshing change, and it’s gladdening to see the band experimenting with their sounds without feeling the need to cause a major upheaval at the same time.
That shift in sound is immediately noticeable in opening track ‘Fingers Never Bleed’. The tribal beats and layered synths set the tone for the rest of the album, and both work in perfect conjunction with Keating’s ethereal vocals. It’s a somewhat subdued triumvirate of instrumentation and vocalisation that continues through the first few tracks. ‘Henrietta’ brings an end to this, echoing Odd Blood at its finest with its incredibly catchy synth hook and stronger focus on vocals, before returning to the dreamlike (and by now familiar) Fragrant World sound in the second half of the track. As it continues, the experimental side of the record begins to emerge and influences begin to shift noticeably. ‘Damaged Goods’ is a only a little bit of vocal distortion away from becoming an Era Extraña-style Neon Indian track, ‘Reagan’s Skeleton’ is a delightful blend of 80s synth-pop and a heavy, electronic bass line whilst the slightly off-tune hook and disjointed rhythm of ‘Demon Road’ provides a demented twist on the other-worldly feel of the earlier tracks from the album. This is perhaps fitting with the shift from thematic focus on mortality (found in particular in Longevity – where Keating despairs “how quickly the bloom on the rose does leave” – and the desperate hope that “we can live on forever” in Henrietta) to something altogether more demonic, as images are conjured of devils, demons and red-eyed skeletons marching to “sentimental violence”. Towards the end of the album, however, that experimentation begins to become a little jarring. ‘Folk Hero Shtick’ is a very weird track, utilising distorted vocals and harsh sounding synth effects. The problem is, this sound is an irregular occurrence between segments of what sound like a typical – almost generic sounding – track from this album, and as a result, it falls a little flat. ‘Glass of the Microscope’ fares somewhat better, but is just too underwhelming to work effectively as an album closer and fails to reach the heights of some of the previous tracks on the LP.
These two tracks are, however, unfortunate yet minor glitches on an otherwise impressive album. It’s a sufficiently refreshing change in direction whilst holding on to the main features which made the last two albums as strong as they were, and whilst it’s not flawless, it’s nonetheless an extremely strong release and, at times, reaches a trippy, beautifully coloured, psychedelic greatness.

Review: Yeasayer – Fragrant World

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17602-new-yeasayer-pscyvotv/attachment/yeasayer/" rel="attachment wp-att-17603"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-17603" title="yeasayer" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/08/yeasayer-260x206.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="206" /></a>Ever the fans of the theatrical, Yeasayer today launched their unique form of leak prevention – the “<a href="https://www.yeasayer.net/">Pre-Emptive Self-Commissioned Yeasayer Vorstellung or Track Visualizer</a>“. This internet-wide scavenger hunt for the unreleased tracks taken from upcoming album Fragrant World has, predictably, been solved rather quickly. Whilst half a dozen songs are still missing, four – ‘Blue Paper’, ‘No Bones’, ‘Reagan’s Skeleton’ and ‘Damaged Goods’ have already been found, and we’ve got them for you below. There’s nothing particularly surprising, and the Yeasayer hallmarks are all there, but the step away from pop and into the slightly more psychedelic should keep interest heightened whilst the rest of the tracks are hunted down.
UPDATE: the entire album is now up on YouTube. The playlist is below.
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The album’s tracklisting is as follows:
1. Fingers Never Bleed 
2. Longevity 
3. Blue Paper 
4. Henrietta 
5. Devil and the Deed 
6. No Bones 
7. Reagan’s Skeleton 
8. Demon Road 
9. Damaged Goods 
10. Folk Hero Schtick 
11. Glass of the Microscope

New: Yeasayer – PSCYVOTV

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17489-review-secret-garden-party-2012/attachment/622147_10150974712963543_465591670_o/" rel="attachment wp-att-17491"><img class="size-medium wp-image-17491 alignleft" title="622147_10150974712963543_465591670_o" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/07/622147_10150974712963543_465591670_o-260x173.jpg" alt="Credit: Nadia Beckett" width="260" height="173" /></a>
It’s a strange feeling to reflect on a festival and find yourself quite unsure of what actually happened for four or five days. It’s certainly not a feeling that you’ll get walking out of Reading Festival or T in the Park or the Isle of Wight. But then, those events are made for the music. Cambridge’s Secret Garden Party may well be one of the few music festivals in the world where the music doesn’t take the spotlight. Equal footing is given to the art, the “action camps”, the random goings-on and the music, all made possible and held up not by corporate brands and mainstream acts, but by the people on the ground. It seems almost too obvious to call it a festival “by the people, for the people”, but that does seem most fitting. Secret Garden is not a commercial event in a field where punters gather to see music, but is a coming together of some of the maddest, most eccentric and most creative artists in the world. What we have here for you is a summary of the best and the brightest of the festival – the music, the art, the stalls, the events and the people who stood out as the absolute pinnacle of what Secret Garden Party has to offer.
Let’s begin with the music. The sheer eclecticity of the headliners must surely be praised – from the feel-good folk rock of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, who proved, as expected, one of the most enjoyable sets of the weekend (though the question of longevity must be raised – at what point did a set of under an hour become acceptable for festival headliners?) to the incredible light show of dance legends Orbital and electro-swing stylings of Caravan Palace. It takes guts to give a headline slot to a less typical act like that. Elsewhere, Electric Swing Circus‘ Friday night 2am show absolutely <a href="www.crackintheroad.com/?p=17279&preview=true" target="_blank">lived up to expectations</a> whilst SGP darlings The Correspondents once again proved their dedication to putting on a stunner of a live show during a secret set at the very end of the festival. The weekend wasn’t exactly musical nirvana, as a lacklustre set from Scroobius Pip disappointed and it has not yet become clear why the festival’s organisers seem to have such a thing for Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, but overall the selection of music was not only of strong quality, but also proved impressively apt for the style and ethos of the festival.
<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/8600-secret-garden-party-2011-art/" target="_blank">Last year’s art pieces,</a> with the exception of 85a‘s “Electric Spectacle” and the tragically yet hilariously doomed “Is Land” piece, fell a little bit flat. This year, however, they did not. As ever, taking centre stage at the festival was the traditional setpiece in the middle of the festival’s lake, “Figureheads of the Ages” by burning art pioneers Pirate Technics (pictured). <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17489-review-secret-garden-party-2012/attachment/ayv5e7tcuaasur8/" rel="attachment wp-att-17502"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17502" title="AyV5E7TCUAAsuR8" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2012/07/AyV5E7TCUAAsuR8-260x346.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="346" /></a>As with much of the art at Secret Garden, the piece is, of course, fully interactive – with the man-made island being used as its own small stage complete with music and DJs before being ceremoniously set alight and destroyed halfway through the festival. Roding Projects’ “The Great Guilded Retriever”, provided more interactivity, stunningly imposing over the skyline of the festival and complete with inner sanctum and periscope through the eyes of the giant wooden canine. A personal favourite, the piece perfectly represented the madness and the humour that Secret Garden art should be about. Sarah Cockings‘ “Lune”, though not as physically imposing or obvious as some of the other installations, was an amusing tribute to the <a href="https://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/02/missing-inflatable-island-secret-garden" target="_blank">premature release</a> of her “Is Land” setpiece last year – this year, however, it was purposefully cut loose, complete with GPS tracking software. <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17489-review-secret-garden-party-2012/attachment/65999424-772a-4d9d-a5b7-17f353f3c6c8/" rel="attachment wp-att-17511"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17511" title="65999424-772a-4d9d-a5b7-17f353f3c6c8" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2012/07/65999424-772a-4d9d-a5b7-17f353f3c6c8-260x173.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="173" /></a>Finally, Peter Hudson‘s world-famous “Charon” – taken straight from Burning Man in the US, is a seemingly perpetually-moving 3D stroboscopic zoetrope, which uses strobe lighting in order to create the illusion of motion. It really is a masterful and fantastically creepy piece of art, and by far the best piece of art on display at this year’s festival.
On top of all that music and art, there is always a plethora of alternative activities on display at Secret Garden Party. Highlights in particular include Tax Deductible‘s “Shitfaced Shakespeare”, a theatrical endeavour in which one of Shakespeare’s plays are acted out with one cast member becoming progressively more plastered as the show goes on (it will, for those attending, be making an appearance at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe). Sunday afternoon’s traditional paint fight on the mainstage (the results of which are pictured at the beginning of this review) turned out exactly how you’d expect a mass paint fight to turn out. Stand-up performances from Robin Ince and David O’Doherty stood out as particularly strong, as did Dances With (A Girl From) Wolves, the dance troupe from the London Leisure Pirates, whose own typically eccentric tent was notably the best place onsite for the somewhat atypical combination of late-night partying and interactive pantomime-style viewings of classic Disney films.
As with most other festivals, there are administrative criticisms to be made. The sheer amount of mud was a serious problem, and was barely dealt with at all – certainly not with the same efficiency as had occured at Latitude Festival the week before – and certain rumblings have started to appear about the ineptitude of on-site security and a string of thefts across the weekend, something which caused particular controversy last year. They’re not gamebreaking flaws, but these are issues that need to be addressed by the festival’s organisers in time for next year’s event.
Despite those little issues, however, it’s pretty damned hard to pick fault with this year’s festival. The sheer quality of music, art and interactivity on offer and the unbeatable vibes brought along by the punters and performers all came together to create four days of absolute creative and artistic bliss. As a music festival, Secret Garden Party is up there with the best. As a coming together of ingenuity and inspiration, it’s unbeatable. As an experience, it’s absolutely unmissable.

Review: Secret Garden Party 2012

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17279-preview-secret-garden-party/attachment/img_7641-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-17280"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17280" title="IMG_7641" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/07/IMG_7641-260x172.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="172" /></a>As we move steadily through the festival season, one can be forgiven for viewing the major festivals this summer with some wariness. A combination of grim weather and uninspired line-ups means that it’s the small and medium-sized festivals that shine this year. From our very own Brainchild to this week’s<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/17063-preview-latitude-festival/" target="_blank"> Latitude Festival</a>, the arts festivals are increasingly coming into the spotlight, and Cambridge’s Secret Garden Party is the artiest of the arty and the weirdest of the weird. Although it’s about the experience as much as anything, we know our priorities – and listed below are a list of the acts large and small that we’re looking forward to this year.
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros:
Headliner #1, and possibly the most upbeat, cheerful band on the line-up. Born out of some ridiculous happenings regarding alter-egos and messiahs and drug addiction, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros are that sort of huge, do-what-we-want, completely mental American folk band not entirely unlike Alabama Shakes or the Head and the Heart. Led by intensely charismatic frontman Alex Ebert, they’re the type of band that perfectly encapsulates the Secret Garden vibe.
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Caravan Palace:
Electro-swing is music for dancing. It’s probably one of the best types of music for dancing, in fact. Caravan Palace are the first of two of the really attention-grabbing electro-swing acts of the weekend, in this case appearing on the main stage. If any type of music was made for this festival, or if this festival was made for any type of music, this is it. They’re French too, but don’t let that put you off.
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Daughter:
Moving away from the mental dancin’ music for a moment, Daughter add SGP to their impressive array of festival slots this summer – from Latitude to Pukkelpop to Green Man to Bestival, culminating in supporting Beirut on their UK tour later this year. Definitely worth checking out their EPs, and definitely worth checking out live.
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Orbital:
Headliner #2, and one hell of a booking for a 25,000 capacity festival. A pretty strong contrast to Edward Sharpe, the dance and techno stylings of Orbital are sure to turn that main stage into a really, really big and really awesome party on the Friday night.
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Little Dragon:
Ever the multiculturalists, here’s Sweden’s representation at this year’s festival – and a hell of a representation at that. Collaborations with SBTRKT and Gorillaz aside, singer Yukimi Nagano is arguably one of the best female vocalists out there.
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Electric Swing Circus:
The second mega-exciting electro-swing act on this year’s line-up. Tragically, the band have only ever released a couple of songs, but they really are showing the genre at its best – and whilst Caravan Palace might be giving the main stage the electro-swing treatment, this performance is where the party will really be at. Smaller, funner, and crazier. Oh, and they’re cool. Very cool. 

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Preview: Secret Garden Party

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/uncategorized/17193-summer-playlist-3-bravestation/attachment/bravestation/" rel="attachment wp-att-17194"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17194" title="bravestation" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/07/bravestation-260x179.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="179" /></a>Well, this is the third summer playlist we’ve done, and at time of writing a month’s worth of rain is falling in the space of 24 hours over much of the UK. At this point, you’re better off just listening to this playlist, closing your eyes, and going to your happy place.
This ‘summer’ playlist comes from our good Canadian pals Bravestation, whose debut album Giants & Dreamers – and this even makes this article worth publishing – is only days away from release, and can be streamed in full over on their <a href="https://soundcloud.com/bravestation/sets/giants-dreamers/s-19poE" target="_blank">Soundcloud page.</a> It’s really good.
Anyway, enjoy the playlist and enjoy Bravestation‘s album. By the end of August we will have given you a summer playlist on a day when it actually feels like summer. Promise.
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(The list also includes Classixx‘s ‘Fingerpaint-Lunar’, which isn’t available on Spotify, but is up on Soundcloud <a href="https://soundcloud.com/classixx/fingerpaint-lunar" target="_blank">here</a>)
UPDATE: It’s been brought to our attention that our American and Canadian friends can’t access Spotify. The list is published below, in handy YouTube and Soundcloud form.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r07We_E355g" target="_blank">Wild Beasts – ‘Loop the Loop’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBvngg87998" target="_blank">Kendrick Lamar – ‘Rigamortis’</a>
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/classixx/fingerpaint-lunar" target="_blank">Classixx – ‘Fingerpaint-Lunar’</a>
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/frenchexpress/moon-boots-got-somebody" target="_blank">Moon Boots – ‘Got Somebody’</a>
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/alt-j/07-dissolve-me" target="_blank">Alt-J – ‘Dissolve Me’</a>
<a href="https://soundcloud.com/saintmotel/saint-motel-1997" target="_blank">Saint Motel – ‘1997’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLCf-URqIf0" target="_blank">A$AP Rocky – ‘Goldie’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KhdPS7-MEw" target="_blank">CANT – ‘Believe’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo4rbhR_vsk" target="_blank">Yeasayer – ‘Henrietta’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIHzh5w4tUc" target="_blank">Usher – ‘Climax’</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KL8qf2qG6c" target="_blank">Paul Simon – ‘Graceland’</a>

Summer Playlist #3 – Bravestation

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/16949-summer-playlist-2-dan-armstrong-clock-opera/attachment/020412_12/" rel="attachment wp-att-16950"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-16950" title="020412_12" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/06/020412_12-260x184.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="184" /></a>It seems apologies are in order here. Our <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/16743-summer-playlist-1-theme-park/" target="_blank">previous</a> (and first) instalment in our series of summer playlists seems to have murdered the good weather. Since it was published, we’ve had rain and wind and thunder and all other assortments of tempestuous nastiness. At time of writing, however, things today have cleared up, so we’re gonna seize the opportunity and give you our second playlist – this time, from Clock Opera‘s Dan Armstrong. Fresh off the back of touring with Maximo Park, the announcement of a <a href="https://clockopera.com/tour-dates/" target="_blank">full UK tour</a> later this year and the re-release of ‘Belongings’, taken from their debut album, we’re super excited to give you Dan’s own choice of his favourite summer songs, and a few words on each. The weather may not be perfect, but you could always store this playlist away for when it gets better, like some sort of reverse musical squirrel.
As ever, check out the Spotify playlist below to have a listen.
Other Lives – ‘Tamer Animals’
Relatively new track by a quality band. I’m pretty much addicted to this song right now. And it’s summertime.
Metronomy – ‘The Look’
We toured with them earlier in the year and I got hooked on this tune. It’s remarkably sparse for such a full, warm track.
Com Truise – ‘Futureworld’
Amazing groove. Deserves lots of volume.
Sébastien Tellier – ‘La Ritournelle’
Yes please.
Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On’
This an honest and incredibly sexual track but that’s only half the story. For me its the vocals which takes this to another level. No-one sings like Marvin. He’s unrivalled. And for a summer tune it’s perfection.
Fleetwood Mac – ‘Everywhere’
I remember hearing this song in a shop as a young child and thinking I need this tune in my life. I’m older now and I have it.
Kurt Vile – ‘Baby’s Arms’
To me summer music isn’t only grooves and partying. There is something incredibly beautiful and unique about this calm, warm and at times sinister song.
Dave Matthews Band – ‘Two Step’
It’s not cool to like Dave, certainly not in the UK. But for me, as a writer, performer, a human being and as a group of musicians they’re right up there. Sorry.
Van Morrisson – ‘Caravan’
I’m not crazy about the La-La chorus but all is forgiven simply for the verses and guitar parts. I can’t think of many more beautiful summery sounds than this.
Silvio Rodriguez – ‘Ojalá’
Silvio is a remarkable musician who I lazily dub the Cuban Bob Dylan. His lyrics, once translated, are very powerful, often inspired by the Castro revolution. For me though the beauty of his music lies in the fact that it doesn’t matter what he’s singing about or if you’re familiar with the song. The melodies are instant, wondering and emotive. Spotify doesn’t seem to offer many of my favourite Silvio tracks but nevertheless Ojala is a classic.
Elvis Perkins – ‘While You Were Sleeping’
When I first heard this song I liked it. After five spins I began to think it a work of genius. If you love lyrics or the art of avoiding sleep at all costs then this is for you. Every word resonates.
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Summer Playlist #2 – Dan Armstrong (Clock Opera)

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/16899-review-parklife-festival/attachment/newpicture27/" rel="attachment wp-att-16900"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-16900" title="New+Picture+(27)" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/06/New+Picture+27-260x177.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="177" /></a>There tend to be two types of urban festival in the UK. You’ve got the Dot to Dots, the Camden Crawls and the Great Escapes – intimate affairs making use of a wide range of gig venues throughout a city – and you’ve got the other kind, which try to replicate the atmosphere and feel of the major camping festivals, complete with tents, awful food and major acts booked to please the masses. It’s a risky strategy. All too easily, you can find yourself surrounded by 15 year olds in a rubbish little car park listening to some inane act who seems only suited to play in a rubbish little car park to a crowd of 15 year olds.
Manchester’s Parklife Festival is very much the latter sort, but (thank God) it manages to avoid those pitfalls. The line-up is diverse without being schizophrenic and has a wonderful blend of rising talent and old favourites. On the smaller end of the scale, Alt-J (∆), Django Django and Mount Kimbie delivered some particularly strong sets, whilst at the other end, the Rapture and surprise favourites Chic got their respective crowds going in a way that’s rarely seen outside of major festivals and Justice put on a suitably epic show. On top of all that, of course, are the (as always) truly awesome Flaming Lips who somewhat inevitably played the best set of the weekend, complete with the exact kind of vibes you’d expect from them. The music wasn’t flawless – De La Soul gave a disappointing performance which was hardly suited for an open main stage, and the less said about some acts (such as everybody’s ‘favourite’ grime artist Dizzee Rascal) the better. The positives far outweight the negatives, though, and the combination of the aforementioned acts with the surprisingly strong sound quality of the festival meant that, on a musical level, Parklife excelled in an arguably disappointing summer for festival line-ups.
But it’s the atmosphere of the place that was most surprising. As I’ve said, when an urban festival tries to be a camping festival without the camping, it can so easily go horribly wrong. At many times over the weekend, however, it was genuinely difficult to tell that this was not a major festival. This could be for a number of reasons – the inclusion of tents, the size of the festival, the quality of the acts, the borderline dangerous amount of mud and the overwhelmingly positive attitude of other festival-goers all came together to create an absolutely top-class atmosphere, and for that, both organisers and punters must be congratulated.
Parklife has problems, sure. But a slightly confusing layout, occasional bouts of poor sound quality and an imperfect line-up aren’t the sort of issues that are going to ruin your weekend. This was the festival’s last year in Platt Fields, and it’ll be a shame if the organisers decide to make the jump and turn it into a large-scale festival in a proper field outside the city – because this year’s event managed to conclusively prove that when it comes to emulating the experience of a major festival in the comfort of suburbia, Parklife is the best of the best.

Review: Parklife Festival

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/16743-summer-playlist-1-theme-park/attachment/theme-park-music-band/" rel="attachment wp-att-16753"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-16753" title="theme-park-music-band" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/05/theme-park-music-band-260x173.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="173" /></a>Summer didn’t last long, then. The last couple of days may have heralded a return to the grey skies and light rain that we’ve come to expect from British summertime, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop having fun. To keep you in a sunny place, we’ve got you the first in our fortnightly summer playlist series, in which we’re gonna be getting some of our favourite artists to give you their top ten tracks for enjoying the glorious British weather (regardless of whether it’s any good or not). First up is Theme Park. Ahead of a string of festival appearances, from Evolution and Field Day this weekend through to Latitude in July and Beacons in August and more, the London four-piece have been kind enough to give us their very own soundtrack summer 2012.
These features are going to be running through to the end of August, and we’ve got some fantastic artists lined up, so stay tuned.
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Summer Playlist #1 – Theme Park

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/15970-new-wintersleep-resuscitatein-came-the-flood/attachment/wintersleep-dustin-rabin-copyright/" rel="attachment wp-att-15971"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-15971" title="wintersleep-dustin-rabin-copyright" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/04/wintersleep-dustin-rabin-copyright-260x172.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="172" /></a>So, that awesome Canadian indie-rock group (no, not that one) have dropped a couple of tracks from their upcoming LP. Wintersleep‘s fifth album, Hello Hum, is released on 12th June and if these two songs are anything to go by, it won’t exactly be alienating any fans. Paul Murphy’s haunting vocals (a particular highlight on their stupendous 2007 album, Welcome to the Night Sky) are as strong as ever, as is the sort of drumming that you’d come to expect from a band founded by a percussionist. ‘In Came The Flood’ in particular is right in Wintersleep‘s comfort zone whilst ‘Resuscitate’ adds just a twinge of something new to their already nicely developed sound.
Check out the tracks below, and get the album on release in June – it’s bound to be a great one.
 
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New: Wintersleep – Resuscitate/In Came The Flood

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9065-review-all-tomorrows-parties-deerhoof-dinosaur-jr-and-the-flaming-lips/attachment/img_7484/" rel="attachment wp-att-9075"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-9075" title="The Flaming Lips" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/07/IMG_7484-260x173.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="173" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-260x173.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-640x426.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-925x616.jpg 925w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-165x110.jpg 165w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-950x633.jpg 950w" sizes="(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px" /></a>The Flaming Lips and Heavy Fwends is undoubtedly one of the more exciting releases coming to us on Record Store Day next month. Far from any bog standard vinyl re-release, it’s a full-sized compilation album featuring guest appearances from artists all the way from Nick Cave to Ke$ha – and here we have the first look at one of the brand new tracks off that album. With a guest appearance from Bon Iver, this track is very much Justin Vernon adapting to the style of Coyne and co, rather than vice versa. It’s a seriously awesome little song that not only demonstrates that The Flaming Lips are (once again) progressing on from their Embryonic sound, but are also actually putting the effort in to releasing an genuinely well-made full album next month – which is something to get pretty damned excited about.
 
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New: The Flaming Lips & Bon Iver – Ashes in the Air

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/arts/15788-art-rambunctious-london/attachment/untitled-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-15793"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-15793" title="Untitled" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/03/Untitled-260x189.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="189" /></a>Unless you’ve been living under either a very heavy rock for the last few years, you’ll be pretty much aware of the fact that London is, this Summer, hosting the 2012 Olympics. A great source of pride for the British nation and a major pain in the arse for those of us who live in the capital, there are at least a few cultural and artistic distractions to keep our minds off the fact that we Londoners are going to be spending a few months in what essentially amounts to a military base filled with tourists.
Cue Rambunctious London. A collection of artwork by “creator, inventor, philanthropist, explorer, scientist, artist and gentleman” Joseph Alberstein Goode (who has previously designed for High Voltage, Wilderness Festival and the Secret Garden Party, this tongue-in-cheek antidote to the city’s ever-worsening chaos provides a comical insight into the city of London through an array of drawings from witty portraits of city stereotypes to a fascinating alternative map of the London Underground.
At the centre of the collection lies London 2012, a beautifully detailed large-scale art print that brilliantly showcases the eccentricities of Goode‘s mind, and contains countless references to various aspects of city life. Elsewhere, one can find Shoreditch Dandy (a caricature of that not-really-loveable Shoreditch hipster that we’ve all met at one point in our lives), London Underground (the aforementioned tube map drawn in Goode‘s unique style) and London (another giant print that packs in the most recognisable aspects of the city’s culture) and many more.
The works (and others) are available online and at certain retail outlets across the city, and are definitely worth a look at least. The collection really, genuinely does capture the city and its quirks beautifully, and at a time when the eyes of the world are on the city, what could be better?
For more information (and a preview of some of the other works), see <a href="https://www.londoncartoons.co.uk/#" target="_blank">https://www.londoncartoons.co.uk/</a>, or have a look below at our preview of London 2012.
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Art Review: Rambunctious London

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/life/15532-kony-2012-propaganda-and-social-networking/attachment/img_2941-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-15534"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-15534" title="IMG_2941" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/03/IMG_29411-260x173.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="173" /></a>
It’s probably safe to assume that if you’ve found this article, you’re internet-savvy enough to have already been exposed to the Kony 2012 campaign. With well over 2 million views on YouTube and 5.2 million views on Vimeo, as well as countless shares around Twitter and Facebook, the campaign has certainly proven true its own claim about the power of social media in changing the world. And why shouldn’t it be successful? Millions of people around the world coming together to stop the crimes of an evil man and make the world a better place – that sounds pretty ideal. And call me cynical, but I think we can assume that to believe things are that simple is staggeringly naïve.
This morning, I came across <a href="https://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">this</a> and <a href="https://innovateafrica.tumblr.com/post/18897981642/you-dont-have-my-vote" target="_blank">this</a> – Visible Children is a self-professed critique of Kony 2012 written by Grant Oyston, a student at Acadia University, Canada, whilst You Don’t Have My Vote is a fantastic article which exposes some major flaws with the campaign. They’re worth a read, certainly, and the issues they bring up are startling. It seems that there are a variety of problems with the campaign that transform it entirely from the shining beacon of light and progress in Uganda that it presents itself as, into an altogether more worrying and (dare I say it?) horrifying affair. From the seemingly harmless (such as the use of donations on ‘staff salaries, travel and transport’) to the more disturbing (such as the group’s support of the highly questionable Ugandan military, the revival of the ‘White Saviour’ and a radical desire for military intervention into the country), these writers really rather effectively pick apart the flaws in the Invisible Children group. However, I’ll leave it to you to make your mind up about the group’s ethics and message. What I found far more worrying, upon waking up this morning to a world gripped with Kony-fever, is the sheer power of propaganda on display.
Take a look at our featured image for this article – those men are the group’s leaders posing with weapons and members of the Sudan Liberation Army. There is no doubt that Invisible Children are radical to at least some extent. As I’ve expanded on above, it is also somewhat clear that whilst the group’s overall aim is honourable, their methods are questionable. But what they’ve done, with a half hour video, some posters and some Facebook/Twitter accounts, is create a façade that the entire world has blindly bought into. As I write, ‘#stopkony’, ‘Uganda’ and ‘Invisible Children’ are all worldwide trending topics on Twitter. The Invisible Children Facebook page’s wall is glittering with support and praise. Millions of people around the world are throwing their money at this organisation on the basis of one video. A single, half an hour video, put out by Invisible Children, telling people to donate to Invisible Children and spread the message about Invisible Children. And people are following, without question. How is this not utterly horrifying? No doubt, what we’re witnessing is a masterpiece of propaganda and the effects that bias can have on the general public. And why shouldn’t people buy into the video? It has everything you can relate to – the naïve child, the terrible villain, and the great hero. It’s so meticulously constructed to make us support the ‘good guys’, and play down any questions or worries we have with what the ‘heroes’ are doing.
So what can we do about this? Am I saying that we should all stop donating and go back to our lives? No. I’m saying that we should be using social media to its full extent. Networking has allowed this video to take the world by storm. It’s making people’s minds up for them. What we need to do is spread the truth – get these Tumblr pages spread as much as the Kony 2012 video, and level out the bias – tear down the saintly image that Invisible Children has created for itself, and show the world the truth. This campaign is, depending on your viewpoint, either a noble attempt to gain support and stop a major war criminal through justified and necessary means, or an ultimately pointless publicity campaign by a radical group trying to extract vengeance on one tiny part of a major problem. Only when people have both sides of the story, though, and recognise this conflict as being made up of by shades of grey and not good versus evil, will people be able to make an informed decision about whether they want to support this group. At the moment, though, for a world that is being increasingly driven by the exchange of information, most people seem to be remarkably ill-informed.
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KONY 2012: Propaganda and Social Networking

[EXPLICIT] Art Review: RubiCANE

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/14710-news-parklife-festival-line-up-announced/attachment/screen-shot-2012-02-08-at-11-05-02/" rel="attachment wp-att-14711"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-14711" title="Screen shot 2012-02-08 at 11.05.02" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/02/Screen-shot-2012-02-08-at-11.05.02-950x690.png" alt="" width="950" height="690" /></a>This June, Parklife Festival returns for its third year at Platts Field Park, Manchester, featuring an absolutely stellar lineup featuring acts such as Twin Shadow, Gold Panda, Mount Kimbie, Tom Vek, Ghost Poet, Azealia Banks and (the shining diamond at the top of the line-up) The Flaming Lips, whose festival appearances we have<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9065-review-all-tomorrows-parties-deerhoof-dinosaur-jr-and-the-flaming-lips/" target="_blank"> gushed over</a> <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9143-review-live-from-jodrell-bank/" target="_blank">before </a>and whose inclusion turns the festival’s line-up from a fantastic one to an unmissable one.
The full line-up can be read below, and tickets are on sale <a href="https://parklife.ticketline.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a> starting from £64.50.
Saturday 

THE FLAMING LIPS / NOAH & THE WHALE / NERO / PENDULUM (DJ) / CRYSTAL CASTLES / TOM VEK / SPECTOR / FRIENDS / DJANGO DJANGO / KELIS / THE CUBAN BROTHERS / DJ YODA / KRYSKO & GREG LORD / CHIC FEAT. NILE RODGERS / ZANE LOWE / SUB FOCUS (DJ) / JAGUAR SKILLS / TEMPA T / DJ HYPE / GOLDIE / 16 BIT / NORTH BASE / DAMIAN LAZARUS / ART DEPARTMENT / MACEO PLEX / CLIVE HENRY / DANNY DAZE / SUBB-AN / PHENOMANAL HANDCLAP BAND / STAY + / TO KILL A KING / NOW WAVE DJS / WILL TRAMP! / TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS / REDLIGHT / PEARSON SOUND / ARAABMUZIK / BEN UFO / THUNDERCAT / DAEDELUS / SPACE DIMENSION CONTROLLER / B TRAITS / DAMU / FAKE BLOOD / D/R/U/G/S / JAMES ZABIELA / TENSNAKE / JUSTIN ROBINSON / SCREEN DEATH / JAMES RAND / SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO / HEIDI / MARCO EFFIE & JAMES MILE / ROMAN ALFERI & LUCA BEAR / ELFESSE & JOZEF K / US & THEM / PETE ZOBRA
Sunday
DIZZEE RASCAL / JUSTICE (LIVE) / LABRINTH / ANNIE MAC / AZEALIA BANKS / THE RAPTURE / EROL ALKAN / MOUNT KIMBIE / DELILAH (LIVE) / MADEON / MURKAGE / MISTY JAM / JUICY DJS / DE LA SOUL / MADEON / BUSY P / WILL TRAMP! / JACQUES LU CONT / GOLD PANDA / GHOST POET / TWIN SHADOW / OTHER LIVES / THE FIELD / JESSIE WARE / NOW WAVE DJS / FACTORY FLOOR / HIGH CONTRAST / NETSKY / LONDON ELEKTRICITY / DANNY BYRD / LOADSTAR / LOGISTICS / NU:TONE / SPY / JESSIE ALAN / FRED V & GRAFFIX / DYNAMITE MC / MAYA JANE-COLES / CLAUDE VON STROKE / JULIO BASHMORE / TOD EDWARDS / JOY ORBISON / MIGUEL CAMPBELL / EATS EVERYTHING / KRYSKO / FRESH (LIVE) / BURAKA SOM SISTEMA / CASPA / SHY FX / ARTWORK / DAVID RODIGAN / DAM FUNK & MASTER BLAZTER / DOT ROTTEN / TODDLA T / ONEMAN / RICH REASON / SOUL CLAP / WOLF & LAMB / FLOATING POINTS / FEEL MY BICEP / COM TRUISE / DROP THE MUSTARD DJS / ZUTEKH DJS

News: Parklife Festival Line-Up Announced

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/14604-introducing-silent-devices/attachment/394349_10150587865833169_25659858168_10923917_1113672930_n/" rel="attachment wp-att-14605"><img class="alignleft size-homepage wp-image-14605" title="394349_10150587865833169_25659858168_10923917_1113672930_n" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2012/02/394349_10150587865833169_25659858168_10923917_1113672930_n-660x371.jpg" alt="" width="660" height="371" /></a>It’s been a while since something good came out of Leicester (seriously, take a look at Wikipedia. There’s David Attenborough, I suppose, and the guy who played Boba Fett), but after stumbling upon these guys at London’s monthly <a href="https://www.communionmusic.co.uk/" target="_blank">Communion</a> a while back, I couldn’t help but fall in love. Mixing epic post-rock melodies with some fantastic vocals and just a dash of ambience, these guys really manage to make good their claim that they are a band made for festival main stages – and it probably helps that their live act is absolutely up to scratch too.
Silent Devices have a double-A single out next month, Una/Moire, both of which can be found on their Soundcloud page. But the pinnacle of their unfortunately sparse output is Warm Blood, a track that brings together the best of both post-rock and indie pop. It sounds like an odd combination, but it really, really works.
<iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F3447442&show_artwork=true" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="166"></iframe>
<a href="www.facebook.com/silentdevices" target="_blank">Silent Device‘s Facebook</a>

Introducing: Silent Devices

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/13070-interview-the-correspondents/attachment/correspondents/" rel="attachment wp-att-13075"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-13075" title="correspondents" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/12/correspondents-950x960.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="960" /></a>
We briefly mentioned The Correspondents in our <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9412-review-secret-garden-party-2011/" target="_blank">Secret Garden Party review</a> earlier this year. Mixing a unique live show with an eclectic range of musical styles, the swing/hip-hop/drum and bass/dubstep/jazz/electro duo quite easily qualify as ones to watch for 2012.
CitR: How did you begin as an act?
Chucks: I was producing some jazzy hip-hop at university, and Bruce was MCing and hosting club nights up in Edinburgh.
Mr. Bruce: And after uni we got back to London and started making a few tunes and playing at a few mates’ parties.
C: We kept going from there, really. We never had a meeting where we said, ‘let’s be a band’.
B: We really had no intention of doing this and we were both very happy in our jobs at the time, and we found ourselves doing more gigs than we could handle. So we did it full-time. Which is the best way to be, in a sense, because we don’t really have massive aspirations. We want to see how far we can take it and push our potential. We haven’t got any particular aspirations towards fame. But we really enjoy it. It’s a really amazing job.
CitR: Briefly describe your sound in your own words.
B: It’s always a bit of a tricky one for us because we’re basically multi-genre. Our sets move from swing to jazz to electro to dubstep to drum and bass.
C: Everything inbetween, really. Dance music of all eras.
B: I think the joy of being a two-man band is that you’re not restricted by having a band with guitars and drums and everything else. I think Chucks just makes everything to his fancy.
CitR: Do you find it easier or harder to get noticed due to having such a unique sound?
B: I don’t know if it’d be easier to get noticed if you had strict genre that came with you. We don’t really want to be pinned down.
C: It’s probably harder for you guys really. It’s quite hard to write 150 words and the problem is, whenever people do, they always mention the live shows which are just one aspect of us. It’s quite hard to pin us down without irritating us.
B: We’re still wanting to come up as some fixed term of what music we make, so every time we do we’re thinking we’re going very much on electro with horns and jazz elements, and then that completely changes and Chucks starts doing drum and bass or some curious form of dubstep.
CitR: Influences?
B: In the car we listen to pretty much anything. We try to give ourselves a bit of a music education with some old stuff – Chucks has been into a bit of 60s beat stuff recently. We got really into the James Blake album. Lyrically, I really like The Black Keys.
CitR: Do you see yourselves as primarily a live act, or do you prefer to put equal focus on recorded music?
B: The live shows are a means of supporting ourselves, and how we can do The Correspondents as a full-time career. We’re in quite a curious position in that we’ve been going for four years and for the first three we didn’t release anything apart from a bootleg EP. Then we properly released an EP in April, and we want to shift the emphasis more to the recorded stuff. So far it’s quite difficult because everyone immediately compares our recorded stuff to our live shows. We, probably self-consciously, want them to be quite different. People say, ‘this track is interesting because it’s nothing like your live show’. But I’m not jumping about in your kitchen or joining you on the tube when you’ve got your headphones in, so you can’t necessarily expect it to be the same thing. 
CitR: You played three separate sets at Secret Garden Party this year. Do you find you have a particular connection to that festival?
B: Yeah, certainly. That festival was the first festival that we did a main stage gig. We pretty much fell into it because another band dropped out and we were told two or three days before the festival that we would be doing this gig. I didn’t know about the festival at all, to be honest. All we knew was that it was a main stage gig, and it was a really hot Sunday afternoon and we thought no one was going to be there, and because of the way the festival is set out, because it was a really sunny day, everyone just congregated there and that ended up being a watershed moment for us. So we do have a connection to it, though I don’t know if we’re going to be doing it this year.
CitR: Is your songwriting process a joint effort, or is it something one of you undertakes individually?
B: We start off with Chucks, really.
C: I’d say there are three parties involved. I make the beat, Bruce will write the lyrics and then we’ll record it, and then we’ll probably go perform it live a load of times so we can see what the crowd thinks, and then we’ll finish it. Now, for the album, it’s harder playing so many gigs where they’re gagging for new material so we’re going to hold back until the album is finished. Just because every time we release something, everyone’s heard it.
B: It’ll be nice to have something really fresh.
CitR: Would you trade in your cult following for more mainstream recognition?
B: Everything would have to be done very carefully.
C: We’d like more people to try our music, definitely, but our fanbase is great.
B: We really get to know them personally.
C: That makes it sound like there’s ten of them. My answer would be no, definitely. I much prefer a smaller fanbase. But I’d also like one that actually bought some of our music.
B: I think my biggest fear would be to be perceived as selling out and lose the original group that came and saw us. I’d much rather keep all the people who supported us right from the very beginning than risk losing them. I think you can build it up, bit-by-bit. A good example of that is in The Flaming Lips, who had loads of albums before becoming recognised and they still have a cult following- it’s not like everyone knows The Flaming Lips but they headline major festivals and I think that’s a good way to do it.
CitR: Any plans for the foreseeable future?
 B: Release an album. I think it’d be nice to change people’s perspective of us a little bit through the recorded music. We will have some jump-up, party dance tracks on the album but we’ll also have a few different tracks. Our latest single, ‘Cheating With You’, is a slight change of tact for us. Production-wise, it’s not an obvious party tune. It’s a bit grittier; it’s a bit heavier and dirtier and has this strange tempo change halfway through.
C: We don’t reject our old sounds at all, but it’s always the angle we get represented, our previous swing-type stuff. To bring that to the centre-ground of where we are you have to do a whole load of stuff way out there on the other side.
B: It’s a practical thing as well – I love doing the live shows, but they are physically very exhausting, and I know that my knees have a lifespan, so it would be good to maybe push out some good music and if people got into the tracks that were slightly slower and less dance-orientated, that’d give us a chance to have a bit of a break in the set
CitR: Best gig?
B: I think we’ve got different ones.
C: First Secret Garden Party, on that main stage. That was a watershed moment and completely unexpected.
B: We did Bestival’s main stage two years ago. It was weird to play before so many people. We were on before Mumford & Sons and there were about 20 or 25,000 people there. They weren’t there to see us by any stretch of the imagination, but it was amazing to play to that many people.
C: I think we managed to catch some of the Ellie Goulding crowd.
B: We had a lot of 16 year old girls. For me, playing Bestival this year. We did rather a curious slot, playing midday on the Friday, which is not really the most exciting slot in the festival, and we were thinking there’d be a thousand people at most and we can concentrate on doing the other gigs. And we were doing our soundchecks and we saw this queue building up outside the venue and when they opened it, it was like sales day at Harrods when all these rowdy girls ran in, and we played to a full house, which was very, very unexpected. And at the end of a long festival season, just what we needed.
C: Looking back at it, it’s probably because there wasn’t anything else on.
B: Well exactly, 10,000 people came because there was shit all else to do.
 
Check out The Correspondents’ first single, ‘Cheating With You’, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m67rRZUO1do" target="_blank">here.</a>

Interview: The Correspondents

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/13050-interview-dan-mangan/attachment/dan-mangan-color1/" rel="attachment wp-att-13051"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-13051" title="Dan-Mangan-color1" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/12/Dan-Mangan-color1-950x633.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" /></a>
CitR: Describe your sound in your own words.
Dan: It’s a lyric-heavy collection of indie rock and folk and jazz and several other ambiguous and vague genres. 
CitR: Since you were in the UK <a title="Exclusive Session: Dan Mangan" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/8705-exclusive-unplugged-session-dan-mangan/" target="_blank">last summer</a>, what have you been up to?
Dan: We toured basically all year. Over the last winter we recorded this newest record, <a title="Review: Dan Mangan - Oh Fortune" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/11533-review-dan-mangan-oh-fortune/" target="_blank">Oh Fortune</a>, and kind of made it on and off the road, and in February or March we started touring more heavily. It’s been one of the most intense tours of my life, and I’ve slept in my own bed fifty or sixty times all year. After this trip I’m done, and get to go home and have two months off, which is nice.
CitR: What are the general themes and inspirations behind Oh Fortune?
Dan: Existence. I think it’s a fairly philosophical record, and there’s a lot of talk of death and life and burning. There are a lot of questions asked. I didn’t set out to try to answer a lot of questions, so much as pose them. There are a lot of different things going on – even the title, it’s a good phrase to describe all of the chaos and beauty and danger and incredibleness and all the different, very complicated, different aspects of what it is to be alive and have a life.
CitR: [At his show the night before] you mentioned Guatemala in regards to certain war crimes that happened there. Do you find politics influences your songwriting at all?
Dan: I think that I’m definitely an opinionated person, and I certainly have some ideas when it comes to politics and society. And I would never consider myself a political singer or a protest singer or anything like that, but I think it’s inevitable that if something’s on your mind it’s going to work its way out through whatever you’re creating. So there’s a lot of social criticism on the record. There’re a lot of punchy lyrics and I think it’s a really healthy thing to take the piss out of people – not in a menacing or malevolent way, but prompting the idea that questions can be asked about a whole lot of things that maybe don’t get asked about.
CitR: There we some quite dedicated people there last night, and a lot of requests. Would you rather have that small, dedicated fanbase, or would you be happier with mainstream recognition?
Dan: Every gig is different. I’ve played a lot of gigs to ten people, and I’ve played some gigs to thousands and thousands of people. They’re all special in their own ways and they’re all exciting in different ways. I think if you only played one kind of gig all the time you’d go a little bit crazy with the stagnancy. It was nice to play that gig last night, but I think that, hopefully, if you work for long enough with enough steadfast sincerity and hard work, you can have your cake and eat it too. There are a lot of people who are successful in the typical sense but are also able to keep their credibility and their musical intentions. I think that’s great and I look to a lot of people who are able to not succumb to any pressure to make their musical commercial but at the same time have found a healthy career in music.
CitR: Do you find there are any differences between British crowds and Canadian crowds?
Dan: Britain is not the easiest place to play. I think there’s so much music in this place already that people tend to approach performances slightly more indignantly. I don’t mean that to be too harsh. I just think this is a very saturated place, whereas if you go and play in some nether town in Germany, people who come to the gig are glued to what you’re doing because there’s not a lot of entertainment coming through town. It’s just different. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter where you go in the world – there’re good people everywhere and there’re dicks everywhere. Every kind of archetype of person exists in all places. So as long as you can tap into the good people wherever you go, then you’re fine.
CitR: Best moment onstage?
Dan: We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve played some very big festivals and some really cool venues all around the world, and I think some of the most memorable gig moments have come from this year. In our hometown we played a big outdoor show for Vancouver’s 125th anniversary in Stanley Park, and it was just the best. It was a free show for the people of Vancouver, and we had a fifteen-piece band with horns and strings and the whole thing was also a couple of weeks after Vancouver had a riot over a hockey game, so it was nice that the city could come together and not break things.
CitR: What music do you listen to on tour?
Dan: A lot of different stuff. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Canadian stuff – an album buy a guy named Bryan Webb who used to be in a band called Constantines that were quite big in Canada. He has a solo record out that I just think is stunningly beautiful. Colin Stetson, the saxophone player, who’s played with a lot of big names like Bon Iver and Arcade Fire, he’s got a solo record out this year that’s just mindblowing. Bon Iver. Radiohead. Lots of good stuff.
CitR: What would you like to be doing in ten years?
Dan: I think I’d like to be doing what I’m doing now, but with a little more time off. If I could tour for five or six months of the year instead of nine or ten but still get to go around the world and make music and record records and have cool experiences, that’s all I really want to do.
CitR: If you could be any animal, what would it be?
Dan:  My last name is Mangan, so there was a period of time where I was called Mongoose. I don’t really know much about a mongoose. But maybe it’s better to pick a mongoose than a lot of animals that get picked right away, and you don’t want the mongeese of the world to get left out.

Interview: Dan Mangan

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/12547-interview-neon-indian/attachment/neon_indian_aug_11_417/" rel="attachment wp-att-12548"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-12548" title="NEON_InDIAN" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/11/NEON_INDIAN_AUG_11_417-950x633.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" /></a>A few days before taking to the stage at London’s Heaven, Alan Polomo, better known as Neon Indian, sits down with CitR to talk drugs, Vegas, and (you guessed it) chillwave.
CitR: Can you give a brief outline of how Neon Indian came about?
AP:  I was in Austen, Texas and had just wrapped up VEGA, which is another project of mine, and I started writing these songs as a creative exercise – I didn’t really have criteria for what they were supposed to sound like. The first one was Should Have Taken Acid With You, which was written as a tongue-in-cheek apology for an ex-girlfriend who I had arranged to have an acid date with in Texas, where we both grew up, and I kind of flaked out on that so I wrote her this song. I tried to rewrite it as a VEGA song, but it just didn’t work and I just reached the conclusion that I needed to write more songs in that style, and in a month and half’s time I had Psychic Chasms.
CitR: Do you regard Psychic Chasms and Era Extraña as separate entities, or do you see the latter as a thematic and stylistic continuation of the former?
AP:  I don’t really document things very well – if I’m in a room, I don’t take pictures. I try to keep a journal, and after three or four days I get tired of it and just stop and pick it up later. So in a weird way, when I sit down and write a record I try to make it feel like this amalgamation of all the things I’ve been thinking and listening to. The reason I sampled Todd Rundgren in the last record is because it’s all I was listening to, or if I sample my dad because it was an important part of my life and that definitely makes its way onto the lyrical subject matter. For Era Extrana I suddenly found myself in this place where I could think about the last year and a half, and I was listening to a lot of the same records that I was checking out in high school – early Sonic Youth, Bad Moon Rising, My Bloody Valentine – a lot of records that were very much guitar driven, and I felt like I was writing songs that could be played on guitar but were reimagined with synths.
CitR: You mentioned acid before. Do you find drug use influences your music in any way?
AP: Not much, really. It’s certainly part of the narrative of where I grew up and what my life is like, but I generally find that I can’t really write under the influence of psychedelics. They’re more about the defining experiences that I have with people and that teenage sense of indestructability which permeates itself into your subconscious. It’s part of the story, but it’s not driving the narrative.
CitR: Era Extraña leaked before release. Do you find that particularly disheartening or flattering?
AP:  It is what it is, in the current climate. I can’t act like I’ve never downloaded music so to get up in arms about it would be hypocritical. If anything, I was surprised that it leaked so late. In the US, it leaked when we finally put up a stream of it. These days, if you want someone to buy your record they have to believe that its justified and really believe in it. If anything, it forces the artist to make a record that can generate that sort of hype.
CitR: Do you regard yourself, as a lot of blogs and websites have, as one of the artists on the forefront of…
AP:  Chillwave? I kind of feel that whereas musical movements, even 5 or 6 years ago, arose out of the same cities and aesthetic choices, now it just takes a blog to notice that three or four artists sound the same and call it a movement.  I didn’t know anyone from those bands until they wrote about us in the same sentence. But at the same time, I remember when I heard a band I’d want to hear everything that sounded like it – I’d feel like I was tapping into something even if I wasn’t, so it might expose you to a set of bands that make it seem like there’s an on-going aesthetic similarity and I don’t see a problem with that.
CitR: What have been your best and worst moments of your current tour?
AP:  Best moment – Moogfest, getting to see Suicide play Suicide. Worst moment… happened in Las Vegas. That’s all I’m going to say. Not for the reasons that you’d think, but more so for trashed hotel rooms. They definitely do everything in their power to put you in that mindset of “You’re in Vegas, baby, anything could happen”. 
CitR: Any plans for 2012?
AP: Obviously for this record, I’ll be on the road for a while yet. I think at some point I’d like to focus more on recording than touring, because I feel like more of a studio creature by habit. I’d like to put out another Neon Indian and another VEGA record in the next year.
CitR: If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be?
AP:  I feel like The Flaming Lips were those dudes, that was one of the most surreal days of my life. And even then I had the pleasure of getting to meet some of these artists, like M83 and Flying Lotus, and if I could make a track with someone like that would be pretty awesome.
CitR: Where would you like to be in 5 or 10 years time?
AP: I feel like I had more of an understanding of something like that at the end of High School, where you feel like the world exists in one way and it has one dimension to it. Once every six months if you ask me that question it’ll mean something completely different. At this point, I’d like to wake up and be able to do something creative under whatever medium. As long as I’ll be doing that, I’ll be happy.
Check out our review of Era Extraña <a title="Review: Neon Indian - Era Extraña" href="www.crackintheroad.com/music/10967-review-neon-indian-era-extrana" target="_blank">here</a>.

Interview: Neon Indian

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Crack in the Road sits down with Finn Andrews, songwriter and frontman of pop-noir New Zealand rock band The Veils, to discuss their upcoming fourth album.
CITR: Can you give us a quick update on what you’ve been doing since the release of Troubles of the Brain, at the start of this year?
Finn: It’s been all the way, really. We’ve taken this year off entirely from touring to write the record, and we’ve dedicated a chunk of time to just focus on that. After 8 or 9 years of pretty solid touring, it’s been great. So it’s nearly together, and we’re just starting to plan recording for the fourth record now, and we’ll be recording in December. So it’s just been everyday writing, living a very solitary life.
CITR: How has the sound of this album progressed onwards from previous releases?
Finn: It’s hard to say now without having recorded it, but I’ve never spent such a dedicated amount of time to writing and I think that’s allowed me to go much further into the words than I ever had before. I’ve spent periods of time writing songs that have come out fairly quickly, and having this time means the words have taken on a whole new aspect. It’s been really enjoyable, it’s always been one of the parts I’ve enjoyed the most so I’ve been able to focus on that.  When you tour, I think you end up keeping very strange hours so it’s been good keeping a 9-to-5 existence. It’s been very productive. 
CITR: What are the themes and ideas you’re putting forward on this album?
Finn: A lot of references to nature, this time around. Lots of birds and trees, lots of detail. Similar themes are always, I suppose. I’ll always write about the same themes in different ways. I wrote a song about lepers, yesterday. Lepers in love. I don’t know if it’s going anywhere, to be honest.  The chorus goes, “I’ll give you my heart”. It’s a love song. For lepers. That might well die on its feet.
CITR: What musical inspiration have you utilised in writing this album and past albums?
Finn: I tend to listen to the same thing I listened to when I was fifteen. My taste has changed very little in that time. The only thing I do discover is more old music that I haven’t heard before. I do feel very inundated a lot of the time at how much music there is around. Sophia, our bass player, is very much out in the world so she acts as a filter in that way, but I wouldn’t know where to start. 
CITR: What are your tour plans for the next few months?
Finn: It would be good to get out there early next year I think. I’m hoping we’ll have the record finished by January. It’d be great to get back on the horse.
CITR: What was your best moment on stage?
Finn: I remember the first gig we did at the Paradiso in Holland. I was 18, and had my first electric guitar that I ever had. I loved it very much and had quite excessive tendencies back then. In the last song in the set, I held my guitar by the bass, threw it in the air above me and it came back down in a straight line, hit the ground and exploded. That must have been quite the spectacle. I was electrocuted in Berlin as well, continuously electrocuted. Just the right amount to add atmosphere. Maybe it was intentional.
CITR: What differences have you found in audiences in the UK and elsewhere, such as New Zealand?
Finn: New Zealand is a thing unto itself. It feels like a homecoming going there. America has been a relatively recent thing, us touring in the States. We’ve found it incredible exciting over there, and I haven’t found London crowds to be as reserved as everyone says they are. America’s great though, they don’t hold back – they let you know how they feel.
CITR: If you could be any animal, what would you be? 
Finn: I was having a discussion about this the other day, actually. Did you ever read those Philip Pullman books? His Dark Materials. Someone was talking about that the other day, the idea of having a demon or an external spirit animal. No one could pin mine down at all. I thought a table would be quite good – it’s not an animal, but they didn’t really touch on that in the book. I don’t know if inanimate objects are allowed. I kind of feel like that, though. It’s a hefty, pain-in-the-arse thing that you carry around, and it gets in the way on the bus, but you can keep a drink on it. I was in a story-telling workshop when I was about six with my dad, and we had to stare into the trees for our spirit animal, and everyone else was seeing tigers and leopards and polar bears and stuff and all I could see was this little mouse. That was really annoying. But in the book it’s the evil people with the ostentatious animals. I think people with mice and tables are usually alright.

Interview: The Veils

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/11533-review-dan-mangan-oh-fortune/attachment/dan-mangan-oh-fortune-album-cover_digital/" rel="attachment wp-att-11534"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-11534" title="Dan Mangan Oh Fortune album cover_digital" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital-950x950.jpg" alt="" width="760" height="760" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital-950x950.jpg 950w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital-165x165.jpg 165w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital-260x260.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital-640x640.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/Dan-Mangan-Oh-Fortune-album-cover_digital.jpg 1417w" sizes="(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px" /></a>
Oh, Dan. What happened to you? What horrendous, depressing event was inflicted on you in the last few years? In the past, the albums of Canadian folk artist Dan Mangan have hardly been easy-listening, and sure, there was always an underlying sense of sadness to the way that Mangan composed his songs, but it was done in a way that kept things optimistic. What we have here in Oh Fortune is something even grimmer, darker, and really rather more depressing.
The contrast with past albums that is initially more obvious though, is the instrumental composition of each song on the album. From the opening track, About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All, which features Mangan’s trademark voice backed by what could very well be a full orchestra, it’s clear that the formula used on past albums – instrumentation taking a backseat to Mangan’s vocal work – has, if not quite been abandoned, certainly been altered. That is not to say, however, that the vocals on Oh Fortune are any worse for wear – much of his previous success has been based on his incredibly powerful voice, and that voice is just as strong on this record as ever – most recognisably in Daffodil, a minimalist, downbeat track that comes out as one of the album’s best – but the instrumentalisation of Oh Fortune, unlike past albums, goes past a few trumpets and the twang of an electric guitar and into orchestral/full-band territory.
Lyrically, Oh Fortune is (to put it bluntly) extremely downbeat. Although Mangan’s previous works were hardly sunshine and roses when it came to his storytelling, there was always a strange sense of charm and even a little bit of humour to the way he sang. Here, there is nothing of the sort. From “Cast out to see/Friendly with waves/There were sharks beneath me/Hungry for meat” to Mangan asking “Should the daylight forgive the awful things that I did?”, it seems pretty clear that the charm is dead. This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing – replacing the mixture of charm and sadness is all-out melancholy, and had Mangan kept to the instrumental style of Nice, Nice, Very Nice and Postcards and Daydreams, it might not have worked quite so well. Luckily, the addition of large backing vocal sections (such as in Rows of Houses) strings (as in About As Helpful…) and just a little bit of vocal manipulation (Daffodil), means that the album presents a radical enough change in musical direction to justify a descent into the lyrical pit of despair.
All in all, then, this isn’t music to listen to on a sunny day when you’re feeling good. Oh Fortune never, unfortunately, throws out a truly Robots-esque classic either. However, the change in musical direction makes the album intruiging enough, and some tracks (such as Daffodil, Oh Fortune and Rows of Houses, for example) do stand out as being particularly brilliant. This adds up to an album which, though never quite reaching the heights of Nice, Nice, Very Nice, is absolutely worth a listen – or, if you’re feeling down, ten.
<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/8705-exclusive-unplugged-session-dan-mangan/" target="_blank">Check out Dan Mangan’s acoustic session (including Oh Fortune) for us this Summer.</a>

Review: Dan Mangan – Oh Fortune

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/10967-review-neon-indian-era-extrana/attachment/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-10969"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-10969" title="artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/09/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original1-950x838.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="838" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original1-950x838.jpg 950w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original1-260x229.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original1-640x564.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/09/artworks-000010328185-3uso5a-original1-165x145.jpg 165w" sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px" /></a>Outside of the blogosphere and the minds of Pitchfork affectionados, chillwave (perhaps as a result of it being brand new, perhaps because it sounds ridiculous) is seen as somewhat of a joke. Releases from chillwave artists (such as Washed Out, Toro Y Moi and, of course, Neon Indian) over the last year or so have, despite being technically impressive and sometimes brilliant as well as superb for your indie cred, failed to reach the mainstream or do anything positive for the genre of chillwave when brought up in conversation. This new release from Texas-based Neon Indian, however, could be set to change that.
Last year’s Psychic Chasms, heralded by Pitchfork and adored by hipsters everywhere, threw Neon Indian from the dank abyss of obscurity into the flickering, sometimes broken spotlight of a cult following. And it was, actually, a fantastic record – Alan Polomo’s psychedelic vocals perfectly complimented the sound of the album, which clearly never took itself too seriously. Despite this, however, it always felt like something of an experiment – a new idea being tested – which meant that the album generally felt novel, but somewhat immature. With Era Extraña, this problem has been fixed, and then some.
The best thing about this album, essentially, is just how much more mature it feels than Psychic Chasms. Every single track feels deeper and more layered, and the sound of the album seems so much more established – it really feels like the band experimented with the first album, decided they liked what they came up with, and then matured that sound to create what seems to be the natural progression for chillwave as a genre and Neon Indian as a band. Compare, for example, the first album’s Terminally Chill with Era Extraña‘s Hex Girlfriend – the former is simple and almost minimalistic, whilst the latter successfully maintains the feel of the first album whilst making it sound so much more complex and mature.
<object width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="https://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F19823435" /><embed width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F19823435" allowscriptaccess="always" /></object> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mgmtneonindian/04-terminally-chill">Terminally Chill</a> by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mgmtneonindian">MGMTNeonIndian</a>
<object width="100%" height="81" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="https://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F22555455" /><embed width="100%" height="81" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F22555455" allowscriptaccess="always" /></object> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mgmtneonindian/hex-girlfriend">Hex Girlfriend</a> by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mgmtneonindian">MGMTNeonIndian</a> 
 
One of the definining features off the first album was Neon Indian‘s ability to create a hook – most of the tracks from the album relied so heavily on infectiously catchy synth riffs that it could quite easily be seen as pop music. This is a characteristic that is certainly maintained on Era Extraña and is most easily seen on Polish Girl, a track which maintains a hugely catchy synth line throughout and is just a little bit of Radio One airplay away from potential chart success. 
The album is, naturally, not without the occasional flaw – it certainly seems like the type of album to make some people turn around and point out that “every song sounds the same”, and is extremely unlikely to convert the chillwave-haters out there.  The occasional track falls flat, too, such as the inexplicable inclusion of Heart: Attack, Heart: Decay and Heart: Release, three short instrumental interlude-esque tracks that litter the album without really bringing much extra to it.
Despite these minor issues, however, the album absolutely triumphs in one major respect – where Neon Indian have helped to pioneer and establish the genre of chillwave, or glo-fi, or whatever you want to call it, they are now, with Era Extraña, developing and maturing it – and with the creation of tracks such as Polish Girl, Era Extraña and Hex Girlfriend, could very well be successful in bringing mainstream credibility to the genre of chillwave. And although that could very well piss off the Pitchfork hangers-on, at least it means the mention of the word “chillwave” will no longer be met with a tirade of laughter.

Review: Neon Indian – Era Extraña

<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9412-review-secret-garden-party-2011/attachment/img_7744-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-9423"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-9423" title="Secret Garden Party 2011" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/07/IMG_77441-950x633.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_77441-950x633.jpg 950w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_77441-260x173.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_77441-640x426.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_77441-925x616.jpg 925w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_77441-165x110.jpg 165w" sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px" /></a>
Last weekend, somebody summed up to me what the Secret Garden Party was: what Glastonbury wishes it was. Secluded, environmental, beautiful, mad and infused with good vibes brought on by some of the best people on Earth. Unlike Glasto, however, SGP actually succeeds in fitting that description – it’s a bubble, essentially, cut off from the rest of the world with no reliance on commercialism or advertising, and provides arguably the greatest festival-going experience in the UK, if not the world. Instead of trying to write up a description of the festival itself – which, thanks to the see-it-to-believe-it nature of the place, may very well be impossible – we’ve instead got a quick sum-up of the best acts across the weekend, as well as a gallery of a handful of shots taken across the weekend.
Blondie
Blondie are awesome. No man, living or dead, can dispute this and maintain their credibility. The very epitome of 80s New Wave graced the main stage on Saturday night and delivered a set of classics, from “The Tide is High” to “Atomic” to “One Way”, that was as hilarious as it was mind-blowingly brilliant. 
The Correspondents
A new one for me, this. Having never heard of the swing/hip-hop duo (yeah, I know) before, it’s difficult to know what to expect. What was delivered – through one main stage set and two secret sets throughout the weekend – was a unique entwining of genres combined with the borderline hilarious stage presence (not to mention dancing) of MC and vocalist Mr. Bruce. Definitely worth checking out, especially if the opportunity to see them live comes up.
Allie Moss
You’ve heard Allie Moss before. This much is almost guaranteed – her debut single “Corner” was used for those BT Broadband adverts that were doing the rounds a few months ago. Moss was very much in her comfort zone in her set over the weekend, playing a relaxed, almost catharthic, show on the just-as-relaxed Living Room Stage. Moss’ ace is very much her chilling vocals, which managed to make her set just that much better too.
Ed Sheeran
I like to make it no secret that I am no Ed Sheeran fan. His music seems like it was engineered specifically to make chart progress, but his secret set coincided with my 8-hour binge on tea and scones in the Living Room Stage, and thus I was packed in with the only disagreeable ladies and gentlemen I saw over the entire weekend. Sheeran himself did, admittedly, perform quite aptly – solid instrumental work with some decent, if boring vocals. It did seem a little bitter, however, to see that so many people piled in to see him whilst such talent elsewhere on the stage’s lineup that weekend went largely ignored. To sum up, Sheeran, while technically not dismal, was an unfortunate blight on a top line-up. Frightfully dull.
We Are Goose
Now, I’m not just plugging friends here, promise. Self-described as “two men and an acoustic guitar”, these guys tread that often thin ice of combining comedy with music very impressively. Great vocals and instrumentalnessism are, obviously, pretty important – but when performing musical comedy, it is songwriting that can make or break an artist. The pitfall of poor writing is, luckily, easily avoided here – their two sets over the weekend (one of which supporting the Correspondents, above) boasted songs that were genuinely, properly funny. Hilarious, even. And I’m really not just saying that because they’re super nice chaps too.
 
So there. Four of the best acts over the weekend, and one I felt obligated to write about anyway. Of course, any Gardener will tell you that the festival isn’t really about the music – it’s about escapism, relaxation, and meeting complete strangers and becoming great friends just like that. At no other festival, in my experience, do people act so well together, and that makes it truly unique. So long as it stays on course, does not expand, and maintains its ethos of surreality, the Secret Garden Party will continue to be the best worst kept secret in the festival world.

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Review: Secret Garden Party 2011

<a rel="attachment wp-att-9145" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9143-review-live-from-jodrell-bank/attachment/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard/"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-9145" title="live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-950x632.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="632" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-950x632.jpg 950w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-260x173.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-640x426.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-925x615.jpg 925w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard-165x109.jpg 165w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/live_from_jodrell_bank40_website_image_ljwu_standard.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px" /></a>A strange one, this. Classified, I suppose, as a one-day festival, Live from Jodrell Bank (or, to give it its other name, Transmission_001) is a shiny new annual event – or that’s the plan, at least – to showcase some of the world’s best bands under the shadow of the Lovell telescope, the world’s third largest radio telescope. For the first ever Transmission, the organisers pulled out all the stops – some terrific acts were on display, both new and old, all universally in awe of the immense dish above them, and all perfectly fitting (be it coincidentally or purposefully) the spacey-sciencey theme of the event.
The honour of being the first artist to ever grace the Jodrell Bank stage went to up-and-coming London talent Alice Gold. Despite delivering a tight, well-performed set and showing off some impressive indie pop tunes, it was her closing song which both cemented her performance and made clear one of the reasons she had been picked to open the festival-thing. Debut single “Orbiter”, as well as being incredible well-suited for the event (I mean, really – it’s around the point where Gold’s vocals plead “Search for me satellite/For transmission” where one must wonder if she wrote the song especially for Jodrell Bank), boasts an infectious, White Stripes-esque bassline and some awesome vocals. As I write this, she herself is onstage at the iTunes Festival, supporting the Naked and Famous and White Lies. Hopefully, Transmission_001 gave her that extra boost to push her into the success she deserves.
Unfortunately, this event was over a week ago. My memory, therefore, is not perfect when it comes to each artist. It says something, however, if I can remember very little of second act Wave Machines. On record, they seem to be pretty impressive – “Keep the Lights On” and “The Greatest Escape We’ve Ever Made” in particular are fantastic tracks, but from what I remember, their live performance left something to be desired. It was not bad, per se, but compared to the quirks and eccentricities behind the other acts, Wave Machines fell somewhat into the shadow of the day’s other artists.
Artists such as OK Go, for example. Clad in red, green, yellow and blue suits, the Chicago rockers utterly lived up to their hype – their songs were decent, well-performed, etc. etc. But it was that little spark of weirdness that just managed to elevate them to brilliantness. From those suits to performing an entire song with cowbells in order to, in their words, bring diversity to the music that was being listened to by aliens, the sheer bravery of the band coupled with some great songs for a sunny day meant that OK Go, if not quite pushing themselves to the sheer insanity of the acts to follow, proved to be as entertaining as they were talented.
British Sea Power were up next. We’re no strangers to the band ourselves (our not-completely-serious interview with them at Jodrell Bank can be found <a title="Interview: British Sea Power" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/uncategorized/9044-interview-british-sea-power-2/" target="_blank">here</a>), who showcased an impressive enough mixture of classic songs from “I Am A Cider Drinker” to “Waving Flags” and tracks off their newest album, Valhalla Dancehall – most specifically, “Observe the Skies” – arguably one of the better tracks on the album, and one which, like Alice Gold’s “Orbiter”, proved itself to be a suitably apt choice of song for the Lovell Telescope. Building on OK Go’s eccentricity, BSP decided to delve into outright surreality thanks to the appearance of a robot and a bear wreaking havoc onstage and some overtly sexual behaviour between band-members, brief as it was.
And then, headlining the event, was the Flaming Lips. I’ve <a title="Review: ATP" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9065-review-all-tomorrows-parties-deerhoof-dinosaur-jr-and-the-flaming-lips/" target="_blank">already done a review</a> this week fawning over them enough, so I shall refrain from doing so here. As expected, however, they were completely and utterly mind-blowingly fantastic, and that brilliance was exaggerated even further in the company of such a marvellous venue (it seemed to help that Wayne Coyne himself, who was given the opportunity to pilot the satellite, seemed to be having the time of his life), and that is all that needs to be said.
And despite these acts, brilliant as they were, it was the location of the event that was really the star. It made a real, genuine change to be in such a grand and surreal place – it wasn’t an impersonal arena, or an overcrowded festival site. Instead, it was 5000 people listening to great music under the shadow of a staggeringly imposing structure, and, honestly, nothing else like it exists. The brilliance of the bands on show was to be expected – but the idea behind it was both awe-inspiring and educational – from chants of “Science!” from the crowd and speeches from Dr. Tim O’Brien, to displays from astrophysicists throughout the day. A truly unique event, then, unlike any festival in the country (and perhaps, even, the world) and, hopefully, one that lasts as long as the observatory for which it is named.

Review: Live from Jodrell Bank

<a rel="attachment wp-att-9075" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9065-review-all-tomorrows-parties-deerhoof-dinosaur-jr-and-the-flaming-lips/attachment/img_7484/"><img class="alignleft size-singlepost wp-image-9075" title="IMG_7484" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/uploads/2011/07/IMG_7484-950x633.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="633" srcset="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-950x633.jpg 950w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-260x173.jpg 260w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-640x426.jpg 640w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-925x616.jpg 925w, https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/07/IMG_7484-165x110.jpg 165w" sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px" /></a>All Tomorrow’s Parties is, as many of you will know, the company behind a variety of events throughout the year – from the main festivals, ranging in talent from Animal Collective to Jeff Mangum, to the I’ll Be Your Mirror events, right up to the Don’t Look Back series of shows – where artists have the chance to play through their most well-loved and classic albums. Over the years, these shows have featured the likes of The Stooges, Sunn O))) and Sonic Youth – and, as of last week’s show at Alexandra Palace, The Flaming Lips.
Taking the stage first was Californian noise rockers Deerhoof, storming through their 2004 album “Milk Man”. Experiencing Deerhoof, having never heard their music before, is quite a shock, and the band presents a wall of sound quite like no other. They delivered a tight set, and lead vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki flaunted an impressive stage presence reminiscent, and on par with, any frontman or frontwoman prancing around the main stage of a large festival. Despite deciding to choose an album, in “Milk Man”, that seems to be far from the superior album in their discography, Deerhoof nevertheless managed to stand their ground admirably.
It has proved somewhat difficult to put Dinosaur Jr.’s performance into words. Performing their 1988 album “Bug”, the band has managed to pass somewhat into alternative rock legend. After hearing so much hype behind them, and despite the insistence of many who I’ve spoken to since, it seemed quite difficult to figure out what the fuss was about. There was nothing inherently wrong with the set – it was as tightly performed as you’d expect a 30-year old band to be – but Dinosaur Jr. failed to truly grip. Whether this was due to their company – after all, any band is likely to be overshadowed when performing with the Flaming Lips – is not clear, but it seems Dinosaur Jr. are a band not really made for support slots, and would probably have benefited from having a show of their own.
Then, of course, we have the Flaming Lips. Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience Wayne Coyne and company before, and most who haven’t, knows what’s coming. Seeing this band is a mind-blowing, almost spiritual experience. Seriously. It’s a hell of a spectacle to see photos of, or watch over the internet, but being there is something else entirely. From Wayne Coyne’s peace-and-love attitude (including a lot of talking), to the sheer sincerity with which songs are performed, right up to, of course, the balloons and confetti and lasers – the photos in the gallery below do not do it justice. Of course, it helped that the band were performing what is arguably their greatest album, The Soft Bulletin, from the incredibly feel-good opener of “Race for the Prize”, to the more subdued tracks such as “Waitin’ for a Superman”, to the insane, massive, brilliant wall of sound created by “The Gash”. Finishing off a rare, and quite spectacular, setlist is “Do You Realize???”, the Yoshimi classic that cemented the joy of absolutely everyone in the crowd. This is the first of two Flaming Lips reviews to come in the next few days, and hopefully, the next won’t be as gushing. But I think it’ll be hard to find someone who has experienced the Flaming Lips live who wouldn’t gush too, and who wouldn’t disagree when I say that seeing such a feel-good, spectacular, confetti and laser-filled band performing their legendary album really is something quite special.

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Review: All Tomorrow’s Parties – Deerhoof, Dinosaur Jr. and The Flaming Lips

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Now, it’s quite important to note that this interview was not a very well-thought out one: what follows is the result of an interview in which the interviewer had no questions to ask, was missing a Flaming Lips set, and could only actually find two members of British Sea Power. Nevertheless, Jan Scott Wilkinson (or Yan, vocals and guitar) and Phil Sumner (cornet and keyboards) sat down under the shadow of the Lovell telescope in Cheshire to discuss a variety of crucial issues which had very little to do with the world of music.
CitR: So.
Phil: [immediately distracted by a 2 year-old pushing a suitcase of beers] That’s inspiration. Look at him! If you’ve ever seen inspiration, there it is. You’re a good lad, you are. He’s got beers in it, look! Sorry.
CitR: If you could send a personal message into space, what would it be?
Yan: I’d say “look after the monkeys”. 
Phil: In particular Monkey World, towards Dorset in the South.
Yan: Nobby went there recently, our guitarist, and said it’s highly recommended. He said that the monkeys that live in Monkey World are all monkeys people didn’t want to look after. The reject monkeys. Where did they get them from? Where do people come from that had these monkeys and didn’t want them? So yeah. “Obliterate the monkeys”. No! “Obliterate the people, re-energize the monkeys” and start again.
CitR: What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you onstage?
Yan: I was halfway through a gig in Glastonbury, and then King Arthur came over and started talking to me, and I had a chat with him. He was a lovely man.
Phil: Yan, or Scott, or whatever you wanna call him, his brother dressed up as a robot.
Yan: He punched you in the face.
Phil: He only punched me in the face the next day. He came onstage as a robot, and I was so scared by seeing this robot, I picked up his guitar and smacked the robot right in the head with the full weight of the back of the guitar. No shit, it knocked him clean out. The next day I apologised to him and he said “thank you”, and knocked me on the floor.
Yan: To sum up, we used to take a lot of drugs, but now we don’t really need them anymore.
CitR: Which of you is actually the most out of touch with reality?
Phil: I think it’d have to be Neil [Hamilton, bassist and second vocalist], Scott’s brother. 
Yan: He barely understands anything. Neil doesn’t know what day of the week it is.
Phil: At the same time, he’s got such a soothing personality, that the most mental people gravitate towards him and with just a small touch, be becalmed.
CitR: Ask each other a question.
Yan: Phil, what are you doing?
Phil: I am currently about to have a new baby. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I’m married and my wife’s pregnant, that’s what I’m doing. What are you doing? 
Yan: I’m doing the opposite of you. I’m not married, not having a baby, and unlikely to have a baby in the foreseeable future. 
CitR: What’s your favourite album, ever?
Yan: Best of Serge Gainsbourg.
Phil: Probably, uh…
Yan: Best of Queen.
Phil: I’d say the best album ever is Trans Am’s “Futureworld”.
CitR: If you could be any animal, what would it be?
Yan: [laughs, then thinks] I’d be a human being.
Phil: I thought you’d be a monkey. I think I’d be a cat. Not that I’m a selfish person, but I think cats are quite selfish. I quite like them, not because they’re selfish, but because they’re enjoyable. 
Yan: In a simple statement, without knowing, Phil has identified himself as a non-psychopathic person.
Phil: How’d you know that?
Yan: If you were pyshcopathic you’d be a dog.
CitR: What’s the best place you’ve ever done a show?
Yan: Gdansk, Poland. Yesterday. Abi, our viola player, helped out Pulp because their viola player is scared of flying. So she went on and did “Common People” with them last night in the pouring rain.
Phil: Yeah. Poland is the best place we’ve ever done a show. That’s a fact. And you can report that. It’s the best place that Sea Power have done shows. 
Yan: And it’s full of intelligent, enthusiastic people. The more Polish people we get in England, the better.

Interview: British Sea Power

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Canadian folk singer-songwriter Dan Mangan’s been around quite a bit this year. Since the start of the year, he’s been touring Europe, the US, and Australia, stopping off at Sasquatch Festival in the States and opening up the Other Stage at Glastonbury this Sunday – and in the middle of all this, we were lucky enough to catch him before his (spectacular) show in Sunderland for a quick acoustic session. If anyone’s heading off to Glasto this weekend, these videos should be proof enough that you need to see this guy.
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(Ta muchly to Dan and his management, especially for persevering through light drizzle, broken guitar strings and a city inexplicably caught up in Kings of Leon fever to give us this session)

Exclusive Unplugged Session: Dan Mangan

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Those familiar with Secret Garden Party, and especially those who have experienced it, will be no strangers to the sheer insanity of this festival. Forget giant mainstages, forget 60,000-strong crowds, forget sprawling campsites, and forget commercial advertising. Many people, in fact, largely forget music for much of their time at the festival, indulging in more abstract frivolities instead. As part of our series of previews for SGP 2011, we’re happy to showcase just some of the major art installations on display at this year’s festival.
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Art collective I. Rene is made up by Sarah Cockings, Briony Clarke, and Leena Kangaskoki. Made famous for causing a bit of a ruckus outside Buckingham Palace earlier this year with their “Kates” live installation, the collective brings this startlingly ambitious piece to SGP, funded by the Royal College of Art. In doing this, they hope “to spread stories, to generate situations that can provoke through their experience a sudden unexpected distancing from the situation and shake up your assumptions of the way things are, that can destabilize and open up, for just an instant a different vision of the situation, as if from another angle.” Well then. Good luck to them.
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Look at that name. Cubatron. Right from the get-go, that’s pretty cool. First set up at Burning Man 2009, this piece utilises “thousands of tiny orbs of light”, which “throb, move and swell, embracing everyone in a lattice of light”. Guaranteed to look absolutely stunning in the Summer sunset.
<a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/8600-secret-garden-party-2011-art/attachment/sgp3-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-8606"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-8606" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/06/sgp31-288x226.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="226" /></a>The ROBOT>>>> Village
Ever since forming their first big project at SGP 2010, London-based collective ROBOTS>>>> have created a “huge shanty town of detail and interaction”. Critically acclaimed by, among others, the New York Times, and filled with pieces from other artists and collaborators, it’s doubtful whether there will be any gardeners not in awe of this sprawling piece.
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Another big one, this. Without wanting to spoil the intruiging quasi-gothic, abstract feel of this walk-through interactive piece, the opposite diagram shows just one corner of the installation. 85A are a Glasgow-based brood of multidisciplinary artists, brought together by their belief in revealing work through disused buildings and the “sideways” of man’s environment. Boasting features from a “vortex tunnel illusion” to “Skeletango”, this is sure to be one of the stranger pieces at SGP – and at a festival like this, strangeness thrives.
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The picture gracing your screen right now is a glimpse of the view you’ll see when walking through this piece – the Cambridge Architectural Society challenge gardeners to “find your origin, and be re-born into the frontiers of your next life”. Taking gardeners from the wild frontier of the festival to the rich depths of man’s origins, this thought-provoking piece is sure to tackle any existential musings you may be having.
And these are just the major installations at this year’s festival – from interactive art installations (including slides, mazes, giant TVs and labyrinths), to a flock of Dodos, ladders to heaven, a replica of Stonehenge, and, of course, the iconic Middle of the Lake. Many people will be getting along to this festival for the art alone – and with such abstract, avant-garde talent on display, it’d be inhuman to miss it.
Update: Click here to read our <a title="Review: Secret Garden Party 2011" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/9412-review-secret-garden-party-2011/" target="_blank">review of Secret Garden Party 2011</a>.

Secret Garden Party 2011: Art

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What we have here, then, is two things in one: firstly, it is the next in our series of acoustic unplugged sessions by some of the top musical talent around; secondly, it is a warning against ever setting up and recording an acoustic session next to a railway line and a building site on a windy day. Nonetheless, and despite the wind gods interfering, London-based pop rock band Wolf Gang were kind enough to sit down and deliver a fantastic acoustic variation on their next single, The King and All of His Men. Check it out below.
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Their show itself, at Newcastle’s Cluny, was an absolute triumph. Supports came from old CITR friends Mammal Club, who delivered the sort of white knuckle, energetic set that we’ve really come to expect from them, and singer-songwriter Kyla La Grange, whose powering vocals and instrumentation proved a hit with the crowd (though, if truth be told, didn’t quite reach the heights that were provided by Mammal Club and Wolf Gang themselves).
Wolf Gang themselves took to the stage shortly after and played through their upcoming album, Suego Faults. It was the little things in particular that proved to be so impressive here – from the lighting, to the smoke, to the dandy-like stage presence of founder and frontman, Max McElligott, who played the crowd right into his palm. Much like their <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/5740-review-wolf-gang-dancing-with-the-devil-ep">debut EP</a>, where certain songs were good, others were truly great. It is the big, anthemic, singalong tracks where Wolf Gang really triumph live – from the (quite shocking) raw power of opener Dancing with the Devil, through to The King and All of His Men, my new personal favourite Stay and Defend, right up to the truly epic closer of Lions in Cages. Even certain tracks from that EP, such as Something Unusual and Back to Back, which I initially thought fell slightly short of the standard set by these songs, were delivered with such intensity live that any criticisms I had simply evaporated. But it is the former songs that not only worked so well live (and I maintain would work even better in a large venue or at a festival), but actually got the whole crowd moving – not easy to do in an intimate venue. And then, right at the end of it, having spent 45 minutes acting more of a rock star than most rock stars today, singer/frontman Max McElligott strolled right out of the band room and started chatting to fans.
The band’s tour continues on through the rest of this month, with a couple of festival dates this Summer. Go see them now – because if there’s any justice in the world, Wolf Gang are destined for greatness.

Exclusive Unplugged Session + Review: Wolf Gang

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Our weekly discography guide continues with French indie rock band Phoenix. The Versailles-based group, associated with (amongst others) Daft Punk and Tegan and Sara, is wildly popular both in France and the USA, and has developed a cult following in the UK since their formation in 1999.
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First up is the band’s debut album, United. Surprisingly for a debut, this probably isn’t the best place to start with Phoenix – despite being critically acclaimed after its 2000 release, the album represents a chilled, laid-back style that the band rarely displays in their shows or more recent work. Nevertheless, If I Ever Feel Better still remains a staple of their setlists, and that song alone is a good enough reason to give the album a go. Just don’t expect the rockin’, fast-paced sound of modern Phoenix.
<a rel="attachment wp-att-7225" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/7219-weekly-discography-guide-phoenix/attachment/alphabetical300"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7225" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/05/alphabetical300-288x288.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="288" /></a>Alphabetical represents Phoenix’s break into commercial success. Released in 2004, its synth-heavy approach led to many regarding Alphabetical as the typical “troubled second album”. Indeed, it presents an experimental sound that the band never really went anywhere with – you’ll be hard pressed to find Phoenix playing many of these songs these days. However, there’s really nothing wrong with the album, and it has one big thing going for it – it’s really, really cool, and the New Wave sounds it produces can rarely be found in modern bands.
<a rel="attachment wp-att-7226" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/7219-weekly-discography-guide-phoenix/attachment/61b3gtxze6l-_sl500_aa300_"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-7226" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/05/61B3GTXZE6L._SL500_AA300_-288x288.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="288" /></a>Phoenix’s first live album was released just after they toured Alphabetical. There’s really not much special about this – there’s no point trying to get an idea of their live performances from it, because they neglect most of these songs in current setlists. As well as this, there’s really not enough change in the live versions to warrant a purchase of this live album – do, however, check out (it’s on YouTube) more recent live versions of the band’s second-album song, Everything is Everything. The synths are ditched in favour of an entirely acoustic version, and it really is something special.
<a rel="attachment wp-att-7227" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/7219-weekly-discography-guide-phoenix/attachment/512cyvd9pjl-_sl500_aa300_"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7227" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/05/512CYVD9PJL._SL500_AA300_-288x288.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="288" /></a>It’s Never Been Like That was released in 2006, and successfully combined the critical success of United and the commercial success of Alphabetical. This really is where Phoenix started to go places – Second to None, Rally and Sometimes in the Fall are absolute standout tracks, topped only by the absolutely fantastic Consolation Prizes – an delightfully fast-paced song that will never fail to make a Phoenix fan smile. Get the right version of this album, too, and be treated to a handful of great live bonus tracks.
<a rel="attachment wp-att-7228" href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/7219-weekly-discography-guide-phoenix/attachment/51nmnl5bkll-_sl500_aa300_"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-7228" src="https://api.crackintheroad.com/images/2011/05/51nmnl5bKLL._SL500_AA300_-288x288.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="288" /></a>And now we come to what many call the absolute pinnacle of Phoenix’s discography. The 2009 album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, has, over the last few years, become an icon of indie rock. Almost every track has found its way into films, television, adverts and video games, and the success of the album comes from one place – the fact that it’s just so fun. It doesn’t try to be too serious, it doesn’t try to make you think – it just tries to make you happy. The mellowed-out beats of earlier albums are replaced by top-notch vocals from Thomas Mars and the high-powered punch of Phoenix’s almost iconic guitar effects. Standout tracks include Lisztomania, 1901 and the excellent Love Like a Sunset. The recently-released deluxe version, too, is worth a listen, with remixes from Two Door Cinema Club, Animal Collective, Passion Pit, Alex Metric and more.
Oddly, then, if you’re looking to get into Phoenix, it actually helps to work backwards – the highly accessible and popular Wolfgang Amadeus is the clear starting point for any future Phoenix fan. If you’re desperately looking for further listening, too, check out the (sadly quite short) professional recording of Phoenix’s stint at the iTunes Festival last Summer.
For more, check out <a href="https://www.wearephoenix.com/">www.wearephoenix.com</a>.

Weekly Discography Guide: Phoenix

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Record Store Day is fast approaching. From the sublime, one-time-only limited edition classics to the somewhat more questionable releases, April 16th  is your chance to head down to a local record store, give them all your money, and walk away with some truly great music. To ease the pain of choosing from the endless list of releases, we’ve compiled a guide of the top ten must-buy records coming out on Saturday.
Daft Punk – Tron Legacy Soundtrack
Alright, love it or hate it, it’s still Daft Punk. What’s more is that this not only comes with an exclusive track, it’s also potentially the coolest vinyl you’ll ever see – translucent, blue, and very, very awesome.
Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity
The experimental rock band re-releases its fantastic 2007 album with only 1000 copies. You might be lucky to get it, but be proud if you do – it’s a genuine classic.
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues/Grown Ocean
A nice little two-track preview of the upcoming album from, arguably, the best folk band in the world – if anything, buy it for the cover art.
Gorillaz – The Fall
This iPad-created album, released initially for free last Christmas, isn’t for everyone – it’s certainly very different to the Gorillaz you probably know – but it’s bound to be one of the more popular RSD releases, and certainly worth checking out.
Jimi Hendrix – Fire/Touch You
An alternative version of one of Hendrix’s best ever songs, and a previously unreleased studio recording. How can you possibly not want this?
Mumford & Sons/Laura Marling – Dharohar Project
Post-breakup awkwardness between Mumford and Marling aside, it’s nice to see them both do something different – namely, collaborating with Indian folk musicians.
My Chemical Romance – Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) 
Hah. Just kidding.
Nirvana – Hormoaning
Yeah, Foo Fighters do have a release out for RSD, but if you’re looking for classic 90s grunge, this is where to go.
Panda Bear – Tomboy
As good as any AnCo album, Noah Lennox’s latest solo album is a thing of true beauty. Definitely worth a buy.
The Flaming Lips – Heady Nuggs
Possibly the most mind-blowingly brilliant thing you could buy on Saturday. Five albums in one, including Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin – if you’ve never heard these albums before, this is your chance. Your exclusive, £100 chance. Sorry. Maybe your local record store will give it to you for a tenner.
The Naked and Famous – This Machine/No Light
A double EP from the up-and-coming New Zealand rock band. However, though this is a nice RSD exclusive, if you’re really wanting to get some South Pacific action, try to find their debut album, Passive Me, Agressive You. Not only is it a fantastic record, but it’s also one of the most beautiful-looking vinyls you’ll ever see.

Feature: Record Store Day – Recommendations

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Next week, on Tuesday 5th April, Spotify are hosting their first ever live streamed gig from the KOKO in London, and we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away. To see French arena-fillers Pony Pony Run Run (supported by Delphic and The Naked and Famous and complete with a DJ set from La Roux), simply “Like” us on our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/crackintheroad">Facebook page</a> and write on our wall, telling us what your favourite track by any of those bands is.
The winner will be announced on Saturday 2nd April.
<object height="81" width="100%"><param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F12464039"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F12464039" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed></object> <a href="https://soundcloud.com/pony-pony-run-run/hey-you">Hey You</a> by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/pony-pony-run-run">Pony Pony Run Run</a>

Competition: Pony Pony Run Run, Delphic, The Naked and Famous

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The first album from Broken Bells (the side-project of Danger Mouse and The Shins’ James Mercer), was released last year and gained the band an instant following. The album’s best singles, October, The Ghost Inside and The High Road stood out as some of the best songs of 2010, and with this new EP, Broken Bells have clearly decided to build upon that success – if bringing little new to the table.
Initially, Meyrin Fields sounds a little different to the self-titled debut album from the band. The opening track of the same name is a change in direction from the sound of their first release, showcasing some more electronica-based influences. Pleasingly, the backing vocals that stood out as a highlight of the first album remain, and James Mercer’s vocals are as strong as ever. The rest of the songs are much more typical of Broken Bells’ style, and here lies the EP’s main flaw – it isn’t really that new. As an EP from a side-project, it would have been nice to see some more risky experimentation from the band, trying out something different. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
That is not to say that the EP is a failure – anything but. There’s clearly nothing drastically wrong with sticking to the proven formula if it worked so well the first time around, and Meyrin Fields certainly works well in the context of the first album. In particular, Windows stands out as the strongest track, utilising the strongest points of the first album – catchy riffs and great vocals whilst managing to sound just that little bit unique in relation to the rest of the musical world.
So, more of the same then. Meyrin Fields doesn’t really do much new, which is a shame – an EP should be a chance for the band to spread their wings and do something different. Nonetheless, although these tracks would’ve worked just as well on the first album, the fact that the debut self-titled was so strong means that this EP is definitely worth a buy. It may be more of the same, but when the same is so damn good, you really shouldn’t care that much.

Review: Broken Bells – Meyrin Fields EP

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Last time I wrote about Wolf Gang, the name behind singer-songwriter Max McElligott, was in the wake of their excellent <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/5139-review-the-naked-famous-newcastle">support act</a> under The Naked and Famous last month in Newcastle. Since then, he and his London-based indie-pop band have played a variety of SXSW dates, and have lined up future acts at the Camden Crawl, Dot to Dot Festivals, and a support slot under Editors at the Royal Albert Hall.
The EP opens with 2010 single Lions in Cages, an infectiously catchy track with a fantastically punchy chorus. There’s no slow build-up here – straight from the off, we’re into the very best pop-rock has to offer – this is a song to dance to, to sing along to and to truly love, from the imagery of Lions in cages just for fun and a city that joins us with hands of grace. The lyrical imagery almost perfectly compliments the sound of the song itself – I dare anyone to listen to that chorus and not feel some sort of urge to sing along. It’s not particularly deep, it’s not hugely complex, but then, it wouldn’t work if it was – this track is the very pinnacle of indie pop-rock, and I’d be happy if this were the only decent track on the EP.
Luckily, it isn’t. Dancing with the Devil is Wolf Gang‘s most recent single, and thus one that’s been getting some decent coverage lately – it’s very possible you may have heard it. There is absolutely no loss in quality from the first track to this one – it’s just as catchy, it’s just as fun, and it manages to create a fantastic blend of some quite rock-orientated guitar sounds, anthemic vocals and ever-so-subtle piano melodies. There’s definitely an Arcade Fire influence, thanks largely to the multi-instrumental wall of sound that’s created here.
The final two original tracks off the EP, it must be said, don’t quite reach the peaks that the first two do. That is not to say they aren’t good songs – they are, in fact, perfectly enjoyable to listen to – from the pleasant change of sound of Back to Back to the synth-heavier Something Unusual, which is definitely channeling the earliest of MGMT‘s work – and although the stunning vocal work and inevitably catchy choruses remain, they just don’t manage to be as epic as the EP’s first two tracks. On any other release, by any other band, I’d herald these songs as top-tier – it’s only here where they are ever so slightly overshadowed.
Wolf Gang close the EP with an alternate version of Dancing with the Devil, featuring supporting vocal work from on-the-rise singer-songwriter Kyla La Grange. For a track that worked so well earlier as an anthemic, epic singalong, it translates surprisingly well into this far more emotionally intense, very much stripped back version of the song. It’s an interesting take on a great song, and certainly works as an effective closing track.
Essentially, Wolf Gang have, after spending a fair bit of time releasing singles and individual tracks, come out with an exceptional EP. Max McElligott‘s fantastic vocal work and songwriting, mixed in with some songs that should really be being played from the main stage of a festival or an arena, results in an EP that suggests a hugely bright future for Wolf Gang. The debut album, Suego Faults is released on June 13th. If this EP is any indictation, then it could very well end up as one of the best records of 2011.

Review: Wolf Gang – Dancing with the Devil EP

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This is it, then. Five years after the release of First Impressions of Earth, The Strokes are finally back. General fan-based and critical consensus, however, seems to imply a steadying decline in quality over the course of the band’s discography – from the masterpiece of Is This It to the very average First Impressions of Earth. So, does Angles break the trend? Is this a return to form for The Strokes?
Well, yes and no. It’s an album that sounds both familiar and strange. From the classic Strokes-inspired Under Cover of Darkness (the album’s lead single) to the tragic melodies of Life is Simple in the Moonlight and the Muse-esque wailings of Metabolism, the album’s sound really is all over the place. Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the quality of music on offer, inevitably, varies wildly. Starting with the positive, the opening half of the album really is stunning. Opening track Machu Picchu, with its South American influences and infectiously catchy vocals, stands out as easily one of the two best tracks on the album, and, some would say, could even be heralded as one of the best songs the band has ever written. From that platform of excellence, the album then launches straight into first single Under Cover of Darkness, a guitar-led reminder of the early 2000s, back when Is This It was released. Julian Casablancas’ iconic vocals and one of Nick Valensi’s trademark solos stand out, and one could be forgiven for (having heard only these two songs) believing that The Strokes may have just delivered a masterpiece.
The rest of the first half of the album remains strong, too. Though not quite on par with the first two tracks, Taken for a Fool and Games (which is oddly reminiscent of the 1980s) should be highlighted as good, strong (though not exceedingly brilliant) songs. As we move into the second half of the album, however, things start to go a bit pear-shaped. Call Me Back is a somewhat dull track, and little good can be said about it. As well as this, Metabolism is a generic, ear-damaging song reminiscent of Muse in their darkest hour. A predictable riff and borderline annoying vocals don’t exactly help, either. Mercifully, Gratisfaction – a fantastically fun, laid-back song – just about makes up for this. The album’s closer, Life is Simple in the Moonlight, is also a standout track – though oddly out-of-place in how slow it is, it works nonetheless thanks to some genuinely great song-writing and fantastic instrumentation.
Opinion will be split on this, then – that much is already clear. Under the circumstances (that is, a less-than-cohesive creative process marred by tensions in the band), this really is an excellent album – it is, after all, home to some tracks which many will inevitably regard as classics amongst The Strokes’ discography. However, after 6 years of waiting and tremendous amounts of hype, the occasional disappointing song and the relative shortness of the album may very well leave some fans wondering – is this it?

Review: The Strokes – Angles

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First up at this (surprisingly busy) gig at Newcastle’s Riverside venue was local band, Viva City. Some pretty great new talent on display here, boasting some top electro-indie tunes, and managing to blend in guitar-driven riffs with electro-style beats. Admittedly, nothing truly stood out as excellent, but the band put on a tight show, well-performed, with lead singer Ali doing his very best to get the crowd going. Nothing truly special, but a fun band with some decent tracks.
7/10
Taking the stage next was the highlight of the evening – London-based indie pop band Wolf Gang. Great stage presence, strong vocals, some brilliantly catchy tunes accentuated by fantastic song-writing. The band just signed some SXSW dates and are quite clearly on the way up to the top – if there’s any justice in the world, they’ll get there. Check out Dancing with the Devil and Lions in Cages. Fantastic on record, fantastic live.
9/10
And then it all fell apart. I’d been looking forward to this – Passive Me, Agressive You, the debut album by New Zealand band The Naked and Famous is a great record, full of synth-rock, highlighted best in lead single Young Blood and the equally catchy Punching in a Dream. But that’s on record, and their live performance is something else entirely.
I must admit to not being entirely unbiased here: a couple of factors that couldn’t possibly be controlled by the band helped to ruin the entire evening – namely, the presence of some truly pretentious pseudo-hipsters and a small group of insanely irritating young teenagers who, by all rights, should not be up past 10pm. Apart from this, the band itself barely impressed. On-stage, they failed to interact well with the audience, stopping once or twice to comment on how “Volvic” sounds like “Volvo”, and then complaining that the audience weren’t hyped up enough. Apart from the aforementioned songs, Young Blood and Punching in a Dream (which, I will admit, were highlights of the set and came across brilliantly live), the rest of the set was rather uninteresting and, thinking back, I can remember no other songs played that night that stood out as particularly good.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Lead singer Alisa Xayalith gave a strong vocal performance, and, instrumentally, the band was clearly skilled. It just seems that after such a great album, good prospects, and fantastic support acts, it’s a shame that the main set was so poor – indeed, a lot can be said when the support act was vastly more enjoyable than the headlining band.
Walking out of the venue after the gig, I passed an unfortunate young woman vomiting onto the street. Sadly, she clearly echoed my sentiments. Disappointing.
5/10
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Review: The Naked & Famous (Newcastle)

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Crack in the Road sits down with John-Paul Pitts, TJ Schwarz, and Kevin Williams, before their show in Newcastle to talk surfing, “party fun lunchboxes”, and getting high on-stage.
CitR: What brought Surfer Blood, as a band, into existence?
JP: A need to feel individual, from my parents, brought us into existence – a general sense of contempt at understanding the place we grew up in. I think most people who make music just do it because they’re not very good at anything else.
CitR: Where does the name come from?
TJ: We were on a trip in Florida, coming from Gainsville, and I had a backpack on and JP was asking where I got that backpack from, and I said “something like a surfer would wear, like a surfer blood would wear”. You know, like “it’s in my blood, it’s part of who I am”. 
CitR: But you’re not surfers.
JP: No we’re not. TJ was, he was very passionate. But it’s not literal, like you’re surfing and get bitten by a shark and blood comes out. It’s not supposed to be like that.
CitR: What are your plans for this year?
JP: Make a record, play some festivals. We’ve got this tour, then another US tour. We have some singles coming out, a set of singles. Then we’ve got a tour with And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, and we’re gonna do that in North America. After that, we’re just gonna make a new record and hopefully we’ll have much more at our disposal than with out first record and with all the added opportunities we can make the best record we can possibly make.
CitR: Are those singles coming up from the EP, or from the album?
JP: It’s hard to gauge what a release will be. We just wrote songs and they kept coming out and I think it’d be a shame not to give them a chance to be a full LP, it’d be a shame to release an EP when we’ve got the opportunity for an LP.
CitR: If you could sum up all those singles and those releases you’ve got coming up, in three words, what would they be?
JP: Fast, dynamic, and contrast.
Kevin: Party fun lunchbox.
CitR: Are there any changes in direction in the new stuff, or any new influences that you’ve got?
JP: We were trying to do more focussed stuff, because some of the songs tend to take a strange diversion, but at the same time everyone who’s heard the new songs have said they’ve got Surfer Blood written all over them. Which is a good thing to hear because apparently we can’t escape our own thumbprint. It still has that Surfer Blood sound. 
CitR: What sort of music have you been listening to recently?
JP: In the car? Uh… There are no new bands that are good. Our radio in our van is broken so we’ve been listening to Arcade Fire. We’ve been limited to our CD collection that is right now with us.
TJ: We’ve been listening to The Clientelle’s Suburban Light. One of my favourite records. 
CitR: What is the first record you ever fell in love with?
JP: The first record I ever fell in love with, or the first record I ever fell fell in love with? Let’s just go with that. No Doubt, Tragic Kingdom. 
TJ: Yeah, I’ll go with Presidents of the United States.
CitR: How important do you think it is to keep in touch with fans over social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter?
JP: We were talking about this actually, about what bands should do for their internet presence, and it’s something that’s come up a lot. Drums are important for a band, but a Facebook is just as important. So sell your drumset, and buy a Facebook account. 
CitR: What are your highest and lowest gig moments?
JP: Our highest was when we were really high. Or that was our lowest. Can we talk about drugs in interviews and stuff, is that okay?
CitR: Go for it.
JP: Well, we don’t usually smoke weed, and we don’t handle it very well. We just got here and we played a show and we were so happy, and blah blah blah, so of course we proceed to smoke all this marijuana, and we had another show that night, and we got on-stage, and my guitar isn’t working, we got nothing to work, and I was freaking out ‘cos I can’t figure out why it is, and the whole time I was not plugged in or my volume was all the way down or something or something ridiculous like that. I haven’t cried in a long time, but I cried after that show. Highest was when we played Barcelona, and we played the set, and we got off-stage and saw all our friends and walked over and watched Pavement play in front of the Mediterranean Sea at night. It was absolutely an amazing experience.
CitR: Do you have any pre-gig rituals?
JP: We have a rule that we’re not allowed to use laptops 30 minutes before the set. I think taking off your shirt helps a lot, to get yourself ready for the show. Also, shadowboxing is a good thing to do. Trying to touch the ceiling. I’ve always wanted more pictures in these places because, you know Magic Eye? Those things where you look at them and it looks funny and you see an image? I kinda wish we had one of those, but we keep forgetting it. 
Kevin: One of my rituals is not eating.
JP: I can’t eat for 4 hours before being on-stage. You feel like you’re gonna burp into the microphone. It’s not pleasant.
TJ: I’m trying to imagine myself. Tie your shoes.
JP: If you’re wearing a long-sleeve shirt, roll the sleeves up so you don’t get in the way of the strings.
CitR: Which artist would you most like to collaborate with?
JP: Ever? David Bowie.
CitR: How are UK audiences compared to audiences in the US?
JP: It’s different, ‘cos in the States you get used to people who just heckle you and scream at you and calling you names and there’s never any problem – they’ll have a full conversation with you right there on stage. So you can take as long as you want tuning your guitar ‘cos they’ll just keep calling you. In the UK, you think because they’re more reserved, they’re not into the music, and you think to yourself “Oh God, is this not going well?”, and afterwards, in the US, afterwards, they just walk right by you at the merch table and not say anything, and here you think you play terribly ‘cos the crowd was like crickets the whole time, and they’ll come up to you at the merch table afterwards and say “that was amazing and I want a copy of your LP”. So I suppose more people actually watch the show here than in the US.
CitR: Where do you see yourselves in five years time?
JP: Making records and touring. 
CitR: If you could be any animal, what would it be?
JP: [without hesitation] Kangaroo.
Kevin: Turtle.
TJ: Good question…
JP: Chihuahua.
TJ: I think I’d be a hyena. I think that’s ‘cos of The Lion King. 

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Interview: Surfer Blood

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I’ve always found that the best way to gauge a band’s success, when it comes to live performances, is through the reactions of the crowd. A band can be technically brilliant, filled with energy, and brimming with talent, but if the crowd doesn’t care, then what’s the point? This philosophy came in particularly useful at White Lies’ set in Newcastle’s O2 Academy, where the crowd turned out to be ever-fluctuating between the two extremes of “completely mental” and “downright bored”.
It certainly wasn’t random – there was an obvious pattern to the high and low-points of the night, and I’m sure a few people could already guess what that is. Simply put, most of the songs (bar the fantastic single, Bigger Than Us) from <a href="https://admin.crackintheroad.com/music/4026-review-white-lies-ritual">Ritual</a>, the band’s latest album, were met with a lukewarm reception – in my opinion, rightly so. Most tracks off that album, though well-performed, just don’t seem to work as live songs – at least, they don’t seem to be able to stir a crowd into a frenzy. Exceptions to this do exist – the aforementioned closing song Bigger Than Us received the best reception of the night, and was one of the most fun songs I’ve seen live in a long time, whilst Strangers and The Power & The Glory went down particularly well with the crowd. It’s just a shame that, for most of the other songs from Ritual, a large portion of that crowd was content with standing still and seeming largely unaffected by the band playing on-stage. Whether this is because Ritual is recently released, and hasn’t quite worked its way into the public consciousness, or just due to the failings of the album itself, I can’t tell – but for a few mid-set songs, it seemed very much like I was just watching a particularly crowded support act.
It is with the songs from the band’s first album, To Lose My Life… where the band really shone. Unfinished Business and Death went down a storm, and truly demonstrated the band at their best. They seemed right at home with these songs, and the crowd responded in turn, displaying an aura of bliss that I haven’t seen at a gig for a very long time.
Had the band been able to maintain the highs of the latter quarter of the setlist (which saw the standout performances of the night, in Death, Unfinished Business, The Power & The Glory and Bigger Than Us), this could truly have been an incredible gig. Unfortunately, however, the sub-par second album songs failed to live up to this, and really helped to make the night stop short of brilliant. I won’t say it wasn’t good – it was great fun – and I would find it damned hard to find someone who didn’t enjoy themselves – and the technical skill and performance of the band was nigh-on perfect. It was, essentially, an almost-perfect gig, unfortunately marred by a few dull, uninteresting, and very below-average songs.

Review: White Lies (Newcastle)

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I feel I should begin this review with a confession – I was originally going to review two bands – The Hold Steady, and Wintersleep, their support act. However, around the mid-point of their set in Newcastle last night, I had an epiphany: these guys are quite simply too good to relegate them to a subsidiary paragraph. So, instead, I’m going to do something rather strange – do a full review of a support act.
Wintersleep, as they quite proudly pointed out, are a rock band from Canada. 2007’s magnificent album Welcome to the Night Sky won a Juno Award the following year, and their 2010 album, New Inheritors, was critically acclaimed and managed to solidify their position on the indie rock scene. In their support act, they played a strong set of 8 songs, made up mostly of tracks from the aforementioned albums.
Opening with Drunk on Aluminium, a song that wouldn’t seem out of place in a stadium, Wintersleep powered through their set, showcasing their latest songs such as Preservation and New Interiors, whilst sticking to some spectacular tracks from their 2007 album. In particular, the 8-minute epic Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow Bellied Freaks, aside from being an incredible name for a song, stood out as evidence of why this band should be far bigger than they are. On the other end of the scale, Weighty Ghost provided a sobering, hugely emotional mid-set song and demonstrated just how diverse Wintersleep can be.
Deserving special mention, too, is the band’s drummer, Loel Campbell. The percussion is what truly sets out Wintersleep from their competition. Live, Campbell put in such energy and skill (and the most wonderful facial expressions) rarely seen in too many bands which stick their drummer at the back and focus instead on driving the music with their guitars. Here, however, is a band which is driven by its incredible percussion, and manages to have it almost perfectly compliment every other instrument onstage – it really is something special.
In writing this, I hope not to have offended any Hold Steady fans – nothing against them (indeed, they played a hugely impressive – and surprisingly extensive – set), but they were completely outshadowed by a band which manages to combine emotional lyricism, incredible instrumental skill and some really rather brilliant songwriting. All this comes together to form a band which, far from playing support acts in an O2 Academy on a Monday night, should, by all rights, be headlining themselves.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-iW0zL2LI0">Wintersleep – Weighty Ghost</a>

Review: Wintersleep (Newcastle)

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One of the fastest rising stars of 2010, Twin Shadow’s debut record Forget, released last year on Rough Trade, received numerous glowing reviews. Therefore, we were delighted to be able to chat to George Lewis Jr, a.k.a. Twin Shadow, about European politeness, Coachella, and bad musicians.
CitR: You’ve just started quite an extensive tour. How’s it been so far, and have you noticed any differences between American and European crowds?
 
Twin Shadow: Good. It’s been great. Europeans tend to be a bit more polite, I suppose, as an audience. Which is not better or worse. It’s kind of just a different thing, to just get used to that politeness – sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a weird thing. 
 
CitR: Your first album was critically well-acclaimed. How does that feel?
 
Twin Shadow: It feels great. Really happy, yeah.
 
CitR: What were your musical influences behind that album?
 
Twin Shadow: I didn’t really think about it too much. I think everything I’ve ever listened to in my life is an influence on this music. 
 
CitR: You’ve been making music all your life. What made you sit down and decide to make this album?
 
Twin Shadow: I’ve been recording music forever. This project in particular was no different in the sense that I was always recording, but it was in the sense that I was using programming for the first time. I hadn’t been in a band for a while and I just wanted to create something that was my own thing.
 
CitR:  Twin Shadow. Where does that come from?
 
Twin Shadow: I have a twin sister, and those two words just popped up a lot in the last few years. No deep deep meaning.
 
CitR: Any plans after this tour?
 
Twin Shadow: Just more touring. We’re just gonna tour like crazy.
 
CitR: You’re playing Coachella. Excited?
 
Twin Shadow: Very excited. Very. You should go. 
 
CitR: Well, I would.
 
Twin Shadow: It’s sold out now, isn’t it?
 
CitR: Yeah, and it’s not exactly cheap.
 
Twin Shadow: No, I guess not.
 
CitR: Got any tips for up and coming artists?
 
Twin Shadow: If you don’t think you’re good at it, find something else to do. The world doesn’t need anymore musicians. So if you’re really good at it, then hang in. If you have the slightest thing going that you’re not, find something that you like to do. Don’t just do it because there’s nothing else to do.

Interview: Twin Shadow

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Everybody likes free stuff, and Klaxons’ ‘Landmarks of Lunacy’ EP should be no exception. Released on Christmas Day as a gift to fans, it’s a glimpse of the psychedelic direction the band initially wanted to take prior to being forced to bow to their label. Although what was eventually produced, 2010’s ‘Surfing the Void’, is a strong album in itself, ‘Landmarks of Lunacy’ is Klaxons at their best.
First things first – with regards to this EP, throw out everything you think you know about Klaxons. This isn’t the chart-friendly rave of ‘Myths of the Near Future’, or the hardcore space-rock of ‘Surfing the Void’. ‘Landmarks of Lunacy’ is slow and raw. There are no explosive guitar riffs or lightning quick vocals. Instead, these are replaced by haunting melodies and much slower, mellower vocals than Klaxons fans may be used to. In respect of this complete departure from the norm, it’s probably best to approach this EP as something entirely different – expect classic Klaxons, and you’ll be disappointed.
Impressively, Klaxons seem to have conjured up a flawless EP. Indeed, in creating ‘Landmarks of Lunacy’, the band has compiled the best of many songs they created in their post-‘Myths’ days. The incredibly catchy ‘Silver Forest’, and the echoed, haunting ‘Ivy Leaves’ stand out, but it’s the 7-minute epic ‘Marble Fields’ that triumphs – this track is one of the best the band have ever delivered, beginning with a fantastic piano riff and rising to a crescendo of madness and noise. So fear not, Klaxons fans – this may be a different direction, but the band is as insane as ever.
Lyrically, Klaxons have always been rather strange – their previous two albums have been completely full of borderline mad non-sequiturs. However, with this EP, it seems they’ve descended into complete gibberish. ‘Wildeflowers’, in particular, stands out – (Programmed: the co-ordinates/Mirrored down there in the dip/Refraction triggers/Now a take of wildeflowers). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking for deep, meaningful, and beautifully written lyrical ballads, this is not the place for you. Of course, there are occasional moments of genius – (And never trouble trouble ‘till the trouble troubles you), and hearing these words on record is always good for a laugh, whether it’s intended or not.
So the question is, is ‘Landmarks of Lunacy’ better than their previous albums? Short answer: yes. It represents what the band wanted to do – what it could have done, had it stood up to the executives. ‘Surfing the Void’ may be a decent effort, but it has one or two very poor tracks on it and it’s a sad realisation to think that we could have had an entire album of this instead. So download this EP (it is free, after all), listen to it, love it, and pray that Klaxons turn around, bring back old producer James Ford, and realise that psychedelia is their future.

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Summer Playlist #1Theme Park

WintersleepResuscitate/In Came The Flood

The Flaming Lips & Bon IverAshes in the Air